An Ether Moment

Daily Updates:

• Over the past 24 hours, ETH has soared more than 9% to trade at $3,400, its highest since January 2025. 
• Over the week, Ether is up 23% — near four-times greater than the 6% gain in BTC over the same amount of time. 
• At-the-money implied volatility levels across maturities have increased, particularly for shorter-tenor ETH options. The at-the-money volatility premium on options expiring in 7 days jumped 10 percentage points over the past 24 hours, which has firmly inverted ETH’s term structure of volatility. 
• BTC implied volatility, on the other hand, is up less than 1 percentage point across the term structure in the past 24 hours. That divergence means that the ETH / BTC at-the-money implied volatility ratio is once more above 2.15. In our May Volatility report, we wrote:

“However, in May 2025, the ETH/BTC implied volatility ratio surged above 2 — a level it hasn’t attained in almost five years. Then, on May 16, 2025, ETH 7-day options traded with an implied volatility that was 2.16 times higher than that of 7-day BTC options.”

• Last Saturday, the ratio reached a high of 2.19 – a level last seen in September 2020.

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• Spot ETH ETFs saw their largest day of inflows on record yesterday — net flows totalled $726.6M and were led primarily by BlackRock's ETHA fund which saw investors purchase $499.2M worth of ether tokens. The third largest single day of inflows also occurred this week on July 10, 2025, when ETH ETFs had $383.1M in inflows. 
• We recently highlighted that Spot Ethereum ETF products collectively hold more than 3% of the total circulating supply of ETH, a supply that is becoming even more squeezed as an increasing number of public companies look to hold Ether tokens as part of a strategic reserve.
• Ethereum treasury firm SharpLink Gaming said on July 15 that it had become the largest corporate holder of ETH, with its total holdings amounting to “~280,706 ETH”.
• The Nasdaq-listed firm has even surpassed the ether holdings of the Ethereum Foundation who, according to Arkham Data, own just over 200,000 ether tokens. 

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• After a record-breaking nine hour procedural vote, the longest in history, the US House of Representatives was able to finally advance a trio of crypto bills to the floor for further debate by a vote of 217-212. This will now allow lawmakers to vote on the three bills individually on the House floor.
• 12 Republican conservatives had initially voted against the bills due to their demands for an additional provision that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing digital assets in a broader crypto market structure bill. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X less than an hour before the vote that "The bill as written does not expressly ban a CBDC and does not protect self-custody. Self-custody means that you control your own money, not a third party."
• However, the Republican conservatives who initially voted against the bills ultimately flipped their votes after receiving assurances from GOP House leaders that one of the measures — a bill to prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency — would be added to a defence authorisation package later this year called the ‘National Defense Authorization Act’.
• House Whip Tom Emmer said in a post on X that "Attaching our Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act to the NDAA will ensure unelected bureaucrats are NEVER allowed to trade Americans' financial privacy for a CCP-style surveillance tool”. 
• House Speaker Mike Johnson said he expects a final passage vote on the GENIUS Act as early as Thursday, but the vote on the CLARITY Act might be pushed to early next week.

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• During yesterday’s trading session, an article from Bloomberg claimed that a White House official had said that President Trump was likely to fire the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. The official also claimed that Trump discussed the move in a meeting with congressional Republicans on Tuesday. 
• In response to the news, gold prices soared 1.5% while the S&P 500 reversed its gains earlier in the day and fell by 0.7%. The DXY index also sold off on the news, falling 1.2% – the most since late June on an intraday basis.

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• Later in the day however, President Trump said he is not planning to fire Powell – “I talked about the concept of firing him, I said what do you think. Almost every one of them said I should. But I’m more conservative than they are”. Those comments reversed the nosedive in US equities and the US dollar. The former ended the day 0.3% higher and the DXY index is currently up 0.37%.
• Trump also said “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud” — that was a reference to recent scrutiny Powell has been facing over the Fed’s recent renovation plans of its two main buildings in Washington. According to Trump and his allies, the project is unnecessarily lavish and spending $2.5B on a renovation is “really disgraceful”. Trump added “I think he’s a total stiff, but the one thing I didn’t see him as is the guy who needed a palace to live in”. Meanwhile, Chair Powell has dismissed the claims stating that “There’s no VIP dining room … There’s no new marble. ... There are no special elevators.”
• Trump reiterated on Wednesday that whoever gets the job after Powell’s term which ends May 2026 will be expected to deliver lower rates: “Fortunately, we get to make a change in the next, what, eight months or so,” Trump said. “I’m only interested in low-interest people.”

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• On July 16, Bruna Szego, Chair of the newly operational EU’s  Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) issued a formal warning regarding compliance gaps in the crypto sector.
• Regulators are now expected to assess the beneficial owners and shareholders of crypto asset service providers to ensure they are not linked to money laundering.
• In addition, the AML framework prohibits the use of anonymous wallets and privacy coins, with a requirement for firms to enable direct government access to account data by July 2027.

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• Matador Technologies Inc. (TSXV: MATA) has formally announced a strategic treasury initiative on Wednesday, July 16, to accumulate up to 6,000 BTC by 2027, with an interim milestone of 1,000 BTC by 2026.
• The company currently holds 77.4 BTC and BTC equivalents and has a long-term goal of holding 1% of the Bitcoin’s total supply, positioning itself among the top 20 corporate holders globally — position it aims to reach through future acquisitions.
• The targets are directionally supported by the company’s CAD $900M base shelf prospectus, which could enable the acquisition of approximately 6,000 BTC, under the current spot price.

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• The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Bank of Thailand (BOT) have proposed the introduction of digital assets to Thai baht crypto sandbox for foreign tourists.
• The aim is to boost tourism with public feedback on the project being open until Aug 13, 2025.

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• Biotech company Windtree Therapeutics (Nasdaq: WINT) has announced a $200M BNB-focused digital asset treasury strategy, becoming the first Nasdaq-listed firm to offer direct exposure to the BNB token. It has already secured a $60M agreement with Build and Build Corp, with plans to scale the investment up to $200M.

This Week’s Calendar:

Charts of the Day:

Figure 1. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 2. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 3. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 4. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes

Figure 5. ETH / BTC at-the-money implied volatility Ratio. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes