ETH is Outperforming

Daily Updates:

• BTC has rallied from $105K over the past 24 hours to push past $110K, within a needle of its all-time high of $111,970. During the move up, ETH has outperformed BTC and the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market-cap, currently up nearly 8% on the day. 
• The rally across the crypto market coincides with news of easing trade tensions between America and China, as well as the potential end of President Trump and Elon Musk’s recent public feud. 
• US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick referred to the current talks between the US and China in London as “fruitful”, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed the two had a “good meeting”. President Trump also told reporters at the White House that he had received “good reports”, despite claiming that “China’s not easy” to negotiate with. 

• Additionally, the rally in BTC coincides with Senate Majority Leader John Thune filing for cloture on Monday for the GENIUS Act, the first US legislation aimed at regulating stablecoins, potentially meaning that Senate members may vote on the bill again as early as Wednesday June 11. If the bill secures at least 60 votes in its favour, the Senate will end debating the bill and move toward a final vote on the Act. 
• Only three weeks ago, we saw BTC reach a new ATH, buoyed by favourable regulatory signals when the Senate voted 66-32 to end the filibuster on.the GENIUS Act, opening the way for it to be debated in the Senate.

• Short-tenor volatility smiles for ETH options have surged to their highest levels of call-skew so far this month – with all tenors below 60 days, holding at least a 5% volatility premium towards OTM calls. The 30-day ETH option currently holds the strongest call-skew of 6.24%. 
• Perpetual funding rates for ETH have shot up towards 0.009% from a flat level close to 0% yesterday, and the 8 percentage point increase in at-the-money volatility for 7-day options has reinverted the term structure of volatility, from its previously compressed and flat shape. 
• BTC derivatives markets have not rallied as hard – funding rates have risen to a lesser 0.003% while volatility smiles across the term structure hold at most a 2.4% skew towards OTM calls. 

• US equities ended the day mildly positive – the S&P 500 rose 0.09% while the Nasdaq-100 eked out a slightly higher 0.17% compared to Friday’s closing price. 
• US treasury yields were also relatively unchanged yesterday – with the 10Y yield closing at 4.49% and the 2Y yield down 3bps to 4.01%.
• South Korea’s newest President Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party, has already proposed the Digital Asset Basic Act, only a week after Jae-myung’s election victory, which saw him win 49.2% of votes. 
• According to Bloomberg, the Act is aimed at improving transparency and encouraging competition in the crypto sector by allowing South Korean companies to issue domestic stablecoins if they have a minimum of 500M won ($367K) in equity capital and a licensing requirement approved by the Financial Services Commission. 
• According to data from the Bank of Korea, South Korean stablecoin trading is surging with transactions involving US dollar stablecoins reaching 57T won ($42B) on five main domestic exchanges so far in Q1 2025 already. 
• The bill is facing some opposition however – Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong has warned that warning non-bank issued stablecoins could weaken monetary policy effectiveness, and that the central bank itself should lead in the regulation of a won-pegged, local currency stablecoin.

This Week’s Calendar:

Charts of the Day