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‘More stable returns’ – Ethena expands RWA exposure with AAA-rated CLO funds

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'More stable returns' - Ethena expands RWA exposure with AAA-rated CLO funds


Ethena protocol has begun expansion to RWA (real-world asset) tokenization to boost yields and decouple from crypto market cycles. On Friday, the firm behind the yield-paying stablecoin USDe said, 

The first asset category under evaluation is AAA CLOs, which sit at the top of the capital stack, with a zero default rate at the AAA level across the entire history of the asset class.

Ethena
Source: X

Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) are a pool of loans from individual companies handled by asset managers. Think of it as an ETF index tracking different stocks of various companies and offered to investors. But instead of tracking stocks, CLOs track pooled corporate loans. 

Now, the AAA mark is the highest evaluation score rating firms like Moody’s can place on such financial products. The AAA rating means the product has the lowest level of default or high credit quality. 

Why Ethena is betting on CLOs

Beyond credit quality, Ethena is seeking an RWA asset with high liquidity and a low downside profile. According to the team, CLOs, especially the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund, fit this criteria. 

Notably, during the financial crisis, like the COVID-19 era and high Fed interest rates, the broader CLO sector only fell 8% and 2%, respectively. In both scenarios, the S&P 500 Index (SPY) and broader credit segment dropped 33% and 22%, respectively. 

Ethena Ethena
Source: Ethena

Besides, for a 5% drawdown, Ethena established that it took CLOs 5-8 days to bounce back. Compared to crypto, it’s been about eight months since the Bitcoin contraction began and is now down +50% from its $126K peak. 

For the unfamiliar, Ethena’s USDe leverages crypto funding rates for yield returns. Higher funding rates during bull runs lead to higher yields. But bear markets compress funding rates and yield, too. This worsens when recovery takes longer. 

That’s why it diversified reserve assets to RWA, starting with BlackRock’s BUIDL, which leverages U.S. Treasury bonds. 

Now, Ethena plans to expand RWA exposure and allocate $310 million to the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund. According to the team, this will break the yield returns correlation with crypto market swings and would offer ‘more stable returns.’

RWA exposure breaks that correlation. AAA CLO yields are driven by short-rate policy, credit-spread dynamics, and loan market structure – none of which are tied to crypto positioning or sentiment.

The move comes after Ethena’s recent partnerships with Coinbase and Brazil’s largest exchange, Mercado Bitcoin. It is unclear whether these efforts will boost demand for USDe after dropping sharply since last October. 


Final Summary

  • Ethena plans to expand reserve assets beyond BlackRock’s BUIDL, with CLOs as the next target. 
  • According to the project, CLOs will effectively break correlation with crypto market swings and ensure stable yield returns for USDe. 



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WLD plunges 20% as Hayes dumps token a day after saying he would keep holding it

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WLD plunges 20% as Hayes dumps token a day after saying he would keep holding it

Crypto investment opinions are changing in less than 24 hours these days.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX and chief investment officer of family office Maelstrom, said on Friday the firm had sold its entire stake in Worldcoin, the digital token tied to Sam Altman’s eye-scanning identity project, a day after he said it would keep holding the token.

“Dumped $WLD. I’m out. See y’all at the clerb,” he wrote, alongside a chart of SpaceX stock sliding. WLD dropped 10% in the past 24 hours, with a chunk of the move coming after Hayes’ tweet.

A day earlier Hayes had said Maelstrom was keeping Worldcoin. The firm had just sold all of its Zcash, a privacy coin, blaming a flaw in its Orchard privacy pool that he said undercut the reason to own it, and Hayes said the firm would rebuy it higher if he turned out to be wrong. Worldcoin it would keep, he said then, while waiting for ‘Lord Elon’ – referring to Elon Musk – to lift the price.

The connection ran through artificial intelligence. SpaceX has increasingly pitched its listing as an AI and connectivity play rather than just a rocket company, so a strong debut promised to lift the broader AI and tech trade.

Worldcoin, an AI-themed token that trades around the clock, was the fund’s fast way to ride that, a liquid stand-in for SpaceX shares that retail cannot easily buy and that are not yet trading.

SpaceX trades under the ticker SPCX but does not list on the Nasdaq until June 12, so the price Hayes reacted to is a pre-listing quote from private markets for a company that is not yet public. Worldcoin is also Altman’s project, not Musk’s, and the two men run rival artificial intelligence firms.

Pre-listings for SpaceX stock are down more than 50% in the past few days on Hyperliquid, data shows, giving less of a reason for AI bettors to be holding the proxy.

Hayes is a frequent, market-moving voice in crypto. Worldcoin was bucking a market-wide downturn with a 70% rise over the past month, a gain that has trimmed down to 45% over the past week on Saturday’s price drop.



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BTC price update: Bitcoin reclaims $61,000 after dipping below $60,000 in an AI-led rout

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BTC price update: Bitcoin reclaims $61,000 after dipping below $60,000 in an AI-led rout

Bitcoin reclaimed the $61,000 level in Asian morning hours Saturday after briefly dipping below $60,000 overnight, steadying after a strong U.S. jobs report on Friday triggered a sharp selloff across stocks, bonds and crypto.

The token fell as low as $59,227 before buyers stepped back in, and was trading around $61,000, down about 1.3% on the day.

The bounce came off a level traders had been watching closely. Bitcoin had been sliding toward $60,000 all week as a record run of ETF outflows and Strategy’s first bitcoin sale since 2022 removed buyers that had supported the price. The break below the round number overnight did not turn into a deeper breakdown, with the token recovering more than $1,500 off the low.

The selloff that drove the dip started outside crypto. Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report came in solid, and rather than cheering the strength, markets repriced the Federal Reserve outlook hard. Swaps now fully price a rate increase by the end of 2026, a reversal from the cuts expected under newly confirmed chair Kevin Warsh. Two-year Treasury yields jumped 12 basis points to 4.16%, the dollar rose, and risk assets fell.

The damage was worst in the AI trade. The Nasdaq 100 sank about 5%, its steepest drop since April 2025, and a gauge of chipmakers tumbled 10%. The S&P 500 fell 2.6% and failed to complete a tenth straight weekly gain.

Other tokens remain deep in the red on the week. Ether is down 21.6% over seven days to around $1,575, solana down 23.7% to $63, and XRP, dogecoin and BNB all between 13% and 20% lower. Hyperliquid’s HYPE, which outperformed through most of the recent bleed, is down 9.9% over the same stretch.

The leverage washout was heavy. Around $1.60 billion in positions were liquidated over 24 hours across roughly 308,000 traders, according to CoinGlass, with longs accounting for $1.21 billion. Bitcoin saw $534 million in liquidations and ether $423 million, while Zcash, in the middle of its own 44% collapse tied to a disclosed bug in its Orchard privacy pool, logged another $115 million.

With $60,000 pierced overnight but quickly reclaimed, the question is whether bitcoin can build on the bounce or whether the level gives way on a retest. A clean break below it would put the token back into territory it last traded during the February drawdown.



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Foreign investors pivot to short India debt ahead of policy turn

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Foreign investors pivot to short India debt ahead of policy turn


By Dharamraj Dhutia

MUMBAI, June 4 (Reuters) – Overseas investors are opting for short-term Indian government bonds as they find attractive entry points amid ‌expectations of the interest rates cycle turning, with the Iran war driving ‌inflation higher.

Bonds with maturities of less than five years made up over two-thirds of the ​top 10 notes foreign investors bought during March-May, higher than less than half of similar purchases in January-February, clearing house data showed.

Overseas investors overall bought bonds worth 221 billion rupees in January-February, while in March, they sold a record 177 billion ‌rupees, before turning buyers in ⁠April-May.

Indian government bond yields have risen over the last three months, with shorter duration yields – most sensitive to rates – spiking ⁠on inflation concerns due to the Iran war-linked energy shock.

The 10-year benchmark bond yield rose 34 basis points from March to May, while the five-year yield rose ​55 bps, ​with the spread dropping to an eight-month ​low of 15 bps.

Investors are ‌increasingly factoring a shift toward tighter policy, said Krishna Bhimavarapu, APAC economist at State Street Investment Management. While the Reserve Bank of India is widely expected to hold rates at the June meeting, the policy direction is clearly shifting, he said.

“In such an environment, the front end (of the yield curve) offers more ‌attractive risk-adjusted carry with lower duration risk, while ​the long end remains vulnerable to further ​repricing if the tightening cycle materialises.”

The ​RBI rate decision is due on Friday, with most economists ‌expecting status quo, while Standard Chartered ​Bank has called ​for a 25-bp hike.

“The curve has bear flattened with short-end yields rising more than the long-end yields. This has created a valuations-driven opportunity for ​foreign investors to buy ‌short-end bonds, Nagaraj Kulkarni, chief rates strategist – South Asia & Indonesia and ​head – flows strategy at the foreign bank, said.

($1 = 95.7800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting ​by Dharamraj Dhutia; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)



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Assessing the 14% drop in AVAX’s price – What will traders do now?

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Assessing the 14% drop in AVAX's price - What will traders do now?


AVAX is having a rough week.

The altcoin continued its slide over the last 24 hours, shedding 14% of its value as selling pressure swept across the crypto market. However, what has been surprising is the fact that the decline happened despite strong whale activity on the network.

Normally, a hike in whale participation is seen as a positive sign. So far though, it hasn’t translated into price support.

On the daily chart, the altcoin broke past its key monthly support zone at $8.05 – A level that has held firm since February. The token’s price action has dipped so aggressively that at press time, it was trailing below key Exponential Moving Averages.

AVAX price analysis
Source: TradingView

Is the market leaning heavily bearish?

One reason may be the growing dominance of short sellers.

More than 70% of press time positions were shorts – Evidence that most traders expect the decline to continue. That kind of imbalance can create additional pressure, especially when buyers have been struggling to regain any momentum.

Right now, the market sentiment around AVAX is simple – Traders are more interested in protecting capital than chasing a rebound.

AVAX long short ratioAVAX long short ratio
Source: TradingView

Big money may be less interested

That’s another concern.

Avalanche network’s total Open Interest dropped to around $159 million at press time. This implied that fewer traders might be willing to keep money in AVAX-related positions. 

In most cases, a fall in Open Interest during a sell-off points to weak conviction and a decline in participation. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean institutions are abandoning AVAX. However, it does allude to enthusiasm cooling down significantly when compared to previous weeks.

AVAX open interestsAVAX open interests
Source: Santiment

Could whales be selling? 

Now, that’s the question many traders are asking right now. 

Whales have been active on the network, but the price has continued to fall. There’s been no clear evidence of panic selling though. Even so, the lack of aggressive accumulation means that large holders might not be rushing to buy this dip right now..

As it stands, bears remain firmly in control. Until buying activity returns and market sentiment improves, AVAX could struggle to break out of its prevailing downtrend.

AVAX average order sizeAVAX average order size
Source: CryptoQuant

Final Summary

  • AVAX lost 14% of its value in just 24 hours.
  • More than 70% of its traders are betting on further bearish trend continuation.



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How America Broke the World Cup

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How America Broke the World Cup


The 2026 World Cup is shaping up to be the most profitable tournament for FIFA and the most expensive for fans in history. Business Insider reporter Pete Syme investigated why ticket prices are so high and compiled five charts that illustrate just how out of reach many of the tournament’s games are for average fans. What Syme discovered is that ticket prices are higher than ever because FIFA has adopted ticketing practices common in North America, like dynamic pricing and running its own secondary resale market, where prices skyrocket further. But it doesn’t stop there. The additional costs fans have to pay are also high, including flights, hotels, and transit to game stadiums. Some American cities are jacking up transit prices on game days. When it’s all said and done, FIFA stands to make $13 billion during the 2026 World Cup cycle.



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