U.S. – China Trade Deal, 13F Filings & Sideways Markets

Listen to the Weekly Wrap on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It is a summary with the help of AI-voices. 

      

This Week’s Top Stories

“U.S. and China agree to lower tariff levels and 90-day pause.” – Monday, 12 May 2025 

• On Monday morning at 09:00 CET, the United States and China released a joint statement on the Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva. 
• Both countries recognize the importance of their bilateral economic and trade relationship to themselves and the global economy. The two countries announced significant progress on their respective tariffs and modified both additional tariff rates accordingly.
  - The U.S. will cut tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent from 145 percent for 90 days. 
  - China will lower tariffs on U.S. goods to 10 percent from 125 percent for 90 days. 
• Representatives of the two countries will continue working closely together to establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade relations. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative, and the Chinese Vice Premier of the State Council, He Lifeng, will be part of this process.

“Goldman Sachs and Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Fund raise their Bitcoin spot ETF positions, while Wisconsin’s Pension Fund exits its position.” – Thursday, 15 May 2025 

• This week, several notable 13F filings were published. Goldman Sachs increased its Bitcoin spot ETF holdings by 28 percent compared to the 31 December 2024 filing. Goldman Sachs is now the largest holder of BlackRock’s IBIT, with 30.8 million shares. 
• Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Mubadala, also increased its IBIT position by 6 percent, while Chinese crypto company Avenir boosted its holdings by nearly 3.5 million shares, a 31 percent increase. 
• Other major players, such as Jane Street, Tudor Investment, and Millennium Management, significantly reduced their positions. Overall, 13 of the top 20 institutions cut their Bitcoin spot ETF holdings in Q1.

A Quick Crypto Overview: Crypto Trading Sideways

The crypto market has traded sideways this week, with traders seemingly moving down the risk curve and seeking exposure in memecoins and other small-cap tokens. WIF is the best performer among the top 100 coins by market cap, while PEPE and DOGE are also up more than 15 percent over the past seven days. 

The total crypto market cap is flat on the week, and Bitcoin dominance is flat as well, after losing more than 2.5 percent last week. 

Interestingly, the S&P 500 is up more than 4.5 percent since the close on Friday last week, compared to Bitcoin, which is up roughly 1 percent over the same period. Gold lost around 3.2 percent this week.

Chart of the Week: When Altseason? 

With Ethereum beginning to outperform Bitcoin over the past two weeks and Bitcoin dominance losing momentum, some may be wondering: Is this the beginning of altseason? The chart below shows that we have recently exited the "Bitcoin Season" territory and appear to be moving higher toward the "Altseason" zone. However, we are still much closer to the "Bitcoin Season" range, so altcoin holders should likely temper their expectations for now.

What’s Happening On-Chain?  JPMorgan Chase with Settlement on the ONDO Public Ledger 

This week, JPMorgan Chase announced its first successful transaction settlement on the ONDO public ledger. The bank settled a transaction involving tokenized U.S. Treasuries on Ondo Finance, using Chainlink to bridge private and public networks. This milestone comes roughly six years after the debut of its decentralized platform, JPM Coin. 

As the chart below shows, the total value locked (TVL) in real-world assets (RWAs) across all chains has surpassed $12 billion, with assets distributed across more than 80 decentralized finance platforms. Meanwhile, BlackRock's BUIDL Fund holds nearly $3 billion in assets, up roughly 19 percent over the past month, as institutional investors appear increasingly eager to allocate funds to tokenized treasuries.

In other news, MetaMask co-founder Finlay mentioned this week that the team is still considering the launch of a native MetaMask token. Could an airdrop be around the corner? It seems like it might take some time, if it happens at all. However, Finlay noted in a podcast that the election of Trump and his positive stance toward crypto provides much more regulatory safety for a broader range of token launches. 

He also emphasized that there are no official plans at this time. If a token were to be launched, the information would be announced directly in the wallet along with a provided link. 

Digital Asset Fund Flows: Strategy Bought 13’000 BTC and Digital Investment Products saw $882 million in Inflows

Last week, digital asset investment products saw net inflows of $882 million, marking the fourth consecutive week of inflows and bringing year-to-date inflows to $6.7 billion. Bitcoin accounted for the majority of the flows, attracting $867 million, while Ethereum saw $1.5 million in net inflows. The comparatively small inflows into Ether products are of particular interest, as Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin by more than 25 percent last week. It appears the move was not driven by institutional investors or spot ETFs. 

Meanwhile, Michael Saylor and Strategy purchased 13’390 BTC last week and now hold 568’840 BTC at an average purchase price of $69’287 per Bitcoin. Speaking of Strategy, legendary short-seller Jim Chanos stated this week that he is aggressively selling Strategy stock while simultaneously buying spot Bitcoin. He remarked, “We’re doing exactly what Strategy and Michael Saylor are doing. We are selling Strategy stock and buying Bitcoin, essentially buying something for $1 and selling it for two and a half dollars.” 

On Monday, Bitcoin Magazine announced that its CEO, David Bailey, and its holding company, Nakamoto, have raised $710 million and merged with KindlyMD to establish a Bitcoin treasury. 

Do you remember our Verified Podcast episode with Yat Siu last fall? His company, Animoca Brands, is planning to go public in New York. Yat Siu stated that the Trump administration’s relaxed regulation of crypto assets provides a "unique opportunity" to enter the world’s largest capital market. Animoca was previously valued at nearly $6 billion. 

Market Sentiment: Both Stocks and Crypto in Greed Territory

The crypto and stock market continue to trade in greed territory according to the crypto fear and greed index and the CNN fear and greed index. The AAII investment survey further shows a large increase in bullishness among its members, with the amount of bullish members increasing to almost 36 percent, up from 29.4 percent last week. The amount of bearish members dropped from 51.5 to 44.4 percent.

Other Relevant News 

• Dubai Finance has signed an MOU with Crypto com to allow users to pay Dubai government service fees using cryptocurrency. – Link 

• The U.S. government has recommended a two-year prison sentence for Eric Council Jr., who allegedly helped hack the SEC's X account to falsely announce Bitcoin spot ETF approval. – Link 

• The cryptocurrency and stock trading platform EToro (ticker: ETOR) officially listed on the Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday evening. – Link 

• Coinbase disclosed that criminals stole a small amount of customer data (involving less than 1% of monthly transaction users) by bribing overseas customer service agents for social engineering attacks. – Link 

Looking Ahead: Greedy Markets Grinding Sideways 

The crypto market is slowly grinding sideways, with market participants continuing to remain in greedy territory. 

The stock market opened with a gap to the upside on Monday following surprisingly positive news surrounding the trade deal between the U.S. and China. The crypto market, however, failed to use this as a catalyst for higher prices and closed Monday in the red. 

It will be important to watch whether Bitcoin can hold above the $100’000 level. BTC is currently consolidating slightly below its all-time high and recorded one of the highest daily closes in its history on Saturday, when news from the U.S.–China meeting in Switzerland began to circulate. 

The total crypto market cap is up more than 40 percent from its April low, and this has occurred without a significant correction along the way. The S&P 500 is also up more than 22 percent from its low and has traded almost exclusively to the upside for several weeks. The question now is whether this “up-only” market will continue, or if we are due for a pullback to retest some lower levels as potential support. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Sunday, 18 May 2025 

China – Unemployment Rate, NBS Press Conference 

Monday, 19 May 2025 

Eurozone – CPI, Core CPI 

USA – Various speeches of Fed and FOMC members 

Thursday, 22 May 2025 

USA – Initial Jobless Claims, Continuing Jobless Claims 

Japan – National CPI, Core CPI