原文标题：Blofin Whales' View: War, Gold and Crypto
Original source: Blofin
Original author: medium
编译：Lila，BlockBeats
The increase in global uncertainty is one of the main reasons for the recent increase in the level of liquidity in the crypto market, and it is also an important reason for the recent strong performance of Bitcoin.
Due to the lack of safe-haven attributes, the performance of altcoins depends more on changes in macro liquidity and the state of play of funds on the floor.
Altcoins gain some advantages over ETH in the liquidity competition, which further adversely affects ETH's performance.
A bull market in a geopolitical crisis
After the release of the US non-farm payrolls data last week, the "lower-than-expected rate cut" seems to have been gradually accepted and priced in by investors.
This week, central banks, led by the European Central Bank, will also announce their latest interest rate decisions. Although Europe is doing much better on inflation than the United States, and the ECB is more likely to cut interest rates, it is certain that the return of global cash liquidity to risk asset markets will slow down in the future, given the ECB's weaker influence relative to the Fed. For the crypto market, the bull market is likely to be more "mild and persistent".
However, the reality does not seem to be the case. Since the beginning of April, the rate of return on cash liquidity within the crypto market has accelerated significantly. Over the past week, the entire crypto market has received nearly $3 billion in cash liquidity, and the overall cash liquidity size has also returned to the same period in the third quarter of 2022. As a result of this, the prices of BTC, ETH, and other altcoins have all been strongly supported, and market sentiment has recovered significantly. What causes the abnormal changes in cash liquidity?
Let's take a look at the performance of other assets. While Bitcoin hit a new all-time high, the price of gold rose by more than 25% in 6 months, also breaking through all-time highs. At the same time, the prices of silver and copper are also near their highs in nearly a year. The rise in gold prices is usually associated with risk aversion. As a long-standing "hard currency", gold is an important hedge against rising macro uncertainty, especially in the face of geopolitical tensions.
However, when we look at the price trends of silver and copper, things get interesting. Silver and copper are important military and strategic materials closely related to weapons production and the defense industry. So, to some extent, the rapid rise in silver and copper prices is also another reflection of the risk of geopolitical conflict and macro uncertainty.
So, are there more clues like this? Of course there is! Crude oil prices have risen by more than 20% since the beginning of 2024. Prices of important strategic goods such as coffee have also soared due to increased demand and tight supply chains due to the geopolitical crisis.
Risk aversion is never reflected in just one asset, and when uncertainty arises, people exchange cash for "safe hard currency" or raw materials, which is a big reason for the rise in the price of commodities such as gold, crude oil and coffee, and of course, one of the reasons why the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin rises.
BTC: Will it still go up?
Considering the escalation of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, it is difficult for global investors to effectively alleviate their safe-haven demand in the short term. As a result, risk aversion will strongly support demand for BTC. At the same time, while the pace of cash liquidity return is expected to slow, a liquidity tightening is unlikely to happen again. As a result, the size of the liquidity locked in the spot BTC ETF will remain relatively stable. In the long run, the return of liquidity in the future will also steadily push up the BTC price.
Traders in the options market hold a similar view. Despite the somewhat weakened intraday bullish sentiment among investors due to short-term volatility, investor bullish sentiment towards BTC remains stable and dominant in terms of outlook and prospects. However, investors' expectations for BTC's medium- to long-term performance have slightly decreased compared to March, and the weakening of interest rate reduction expectations may be one of them.
Based on the latest Gamma exposure distribution, BTC prices seem to be showing some signs of stability as the "asset allocation cycle" comes to an end. The BTC price is likely to find some support around $63,000 to $65,000. However, if the BTC price rises further, it will encounter some resistance around $74,000, which will increase significantly as the price rises.
Notably, the latest implied volatility data shows that traders remain relatively cautious about BTC price performance. In the face of the upcoming BTC halving, traders still expect the BTC price to have a 7-day price range of 9.27% and a 30-day price range of 20.74%, despite the relatively low level of macro uncertainty and the pricing of tail risk levels.
Considering that investor bullish sentiment remains high, it is still possible for the BTC price to break above $80,000 in an ideal world. However, volatility is never one-way, and we can't ignore the possibility that the BTC price could fall below $65,000.
The trader's caution seems justified. In the spot market, although the number of whales holding more than 1,000 BTC is still increasing, overall, the growth of whales holding more than 100 BTC has stagnated, which means that purchasing power is weakening. Overall, while holding BTC in the medium to long term is still a better option, the rise in BTC price is likely to stabilize as the "asset allocation cycle" comes to an end temporarily.
Non-BTC Currencies: Internal Gaming
Compared to BTC, ETH is not so lucky. The probability of a spot ETH ETF passing is gradually becoming slimmer. Even the most optimistic ETH investors have come to accept that the negotiations and games around spot ETFs will be long-term. The performance of ETH depends more on the reallocation of liquidity within the cryptocurrency market and changes in the level of macro liquidity within the cryptocurrency market.
From a macro perspective, traders remain optimistic about ETH's long-term performance, benefiting from interest rate cut expectations. However, similar to BTC, the weakening of interest rate cut expectations has also negatively impacted ETH's future performance expectations, which is reflected in the change in the annualized premium of ETH futures.
Although investors have priced in a relatively high price movement in ETH price (9.94% for 7 days, 21.5% for 30 days), investors are more likely to be worried about volatility from falling prices than volatility from rising prices from the perspective of the latest gamma distribution. If the ETH price is trending downward, it can only find some support after falling to around $3,300.
The support on the downward path appears "insignificant" compared to the resistance in the upward range. Unless there is enough positive event in the current market operation model based on "liquidity reallocation", the hedging behavior of market makers will make it difficult for the ETH price to break through and stabilize above $3,700.
Fortunately, the ETH whale seems to have slowed down the sale of spot. Staking for profit has become a relatively more lucrative business under the influence of projects such as Ethena, and traditional covered subscription strategies have also found favor again when price increases have slowed. However, this only means that the whales remain "neutral" in the price game for the time being.
For speculators, it seems more appropriate to invest in other coins with greater potential when the price of ETH is weak, which further adversely affects ETH's performance. ETH's market share fell below 16% at one point, and despite its recent recovery, ETH's market share is still shrinking significantly compared to the previous month. Considering that BTC's market share hasn't changed much over the past month, it's clear that altcoins have gained some advantage in the liquidity competition with ETH.
Overall, holding ETH is not a "bad strategy", and for whales, ETH's abundant interest income channels can still bring relatively stable and substantial returns. However, for investors looking for breakthrough returns, it seems more appropriate to follow the pace of liquidity reallocation in the crypto market, given the current level of leverage and the relatively low speculative sentiment reflected by altcoins.