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What to know:

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Crypto majors continue to trade in a choppy manner, with bitcoin (BTC) retreating to $113,600 after reaching $114,800 late Wednesday. Ether (ETH) and most major tokens also erased overnight gains as derivatives traders looked for downside protection ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday.

Long-term sentiment for bitcoin, measured by an options market indicator, turned bearish for the first time since June 2023. Technical signals also point to a weakening short-term outlook.

In a notable move, an OG wallet sold 660 BTC and opened long positions in ether worth $295 million across four wallets, reflecting growing preference for ETH over bitcoin and echoing a trend seen in derivatives markets.

Heightened concerns over bitcoin’s decentralization emerged after popular X account "WhaleWire" revealed that two mining pools, Foundry USA and Antpool, now control over 50% of the network’s hashrate — the computing power validating transactions. This follows Qubic's recent claim it was able to make a 51% attack on Monero and planned an attempt on Dogecoin.

Financial services platform Swan highlighted that market confidence was shaken by recent guidance from bitcoin holder Strategy, which said that it may issue equity to pay debt interest, fund preferred dividends or when deemed advantageous.

Swan urged investors to focus on Strategy’s $73 billion in BTC holdings and strong balance sheet, suggesting the company could cover dividend obligations for decades even if bitcoin’s price fell more than 50%. “Hardly the picture of imminent collapse,” Swan said on X.

Rapper Kanye West launched a memecoin called YZY, which skyrocketed to a $3 billion market cap within minutes before quickly dropping back below $1 billion. This rapid surge and fall contrast with previous celebrity tokens like TRUMP and MELANIA, which held their hype for a day or two before crashing, indicating a steep decline in appetite for speculative tokens.

In traditional markets, yield on Japanese government bonds continued to rise, increasing the risk of injecting volatility into global financial markets. Stay alert!

Grayscale’s New Income-Focused ETFs

Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto-native asset manager, now offers two new income-focused ETFs:

• Grayscale Bitcoin Covered Call ETF (BTCC) seeks to maximize potential income generation, and is designed to serve as a complement to existing Bitcoin ownership.
• Grayscale Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BPI) seeks to balance upside participation with income generation, and is designed to serve as an alternative to direct Bitcoin ownership.

Through two different approaches to systematic covered call writing on Bitcoin, these two products deliver an alternative income stream for investors that’s less correlated to traditional income-oriented investments.

BTCC and BPI both offer monthly distributions for investors.* See the latest distribution amount on their respective product pages at etfs.grayscale.com

Important Disclosures

*The Funds intend to pay out dividends from net investment income, if any, and distribute any net unrealized capital gains to their shareholders at least annually.

Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the Funds, please call (866)-775-0313 or visit our websites at etfs.grayscale.com/btcc and etfs.grayscale.com/bpi. Read the prospectuses or summary prospectuses carefully before investing.

Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee the investment strategy will be successful. The Fund is considered to be non-diversified. The Fund is actively managed and its performance reflects the investment decisions that the Adviser makes for the Fund.

Grayscale Bitcoin Covered Call ETF (“BTCC”) and Grayscale premium Income ETF ("BPI") (collectively, the "Funds") will not invest in digital assets directly. The Funds also will not invest in initial coin offerings. The Funds will, however, have indirect exposure to digital assets by virtue of its investments in derivatives on exchange-traded vehicles that hold digital assets as investments. Because the Funds will not invest directly in any digital assets, they may not track price movements of any digital assets.

BTCC and BPI are distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC and Grayscale Advisors, LLC is the adviser. Foreside is not related to GSA or its affiliates.

Crypto

• Aug. 21: Layer-1 blockchain Viction (VIC), formerly known as TomoChain, finalizes the Atlas hard fork upgrade on mainnet. The update launched on July 23. All node operators must complete the upgrade by Aug. 21 to ensure full network functionality.

Macro

• Aug. 21, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases July producer price inflation data.

  • PPI MoM Prev. 0.4%

  • PPI YoY Prev. 1.7%

• Aug. 21, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (flash) August U.S. data on manufacturing and services activity.

  • Composite PMI Prev. 55.1

  • Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.5 vs. Prev. 49.8

  • Services PMI Est. 53.7 vs. Prev. 55.7

• Aug. 21-23: The Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, which is hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and held annually in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, brings together global central bankers and policymakers to discuss key economic challenges and monetary policy.

• Aug. 22, 8 a.m.: Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases (final) Q2 GDP growth data.

  • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 0.7% vs. Prev. 0.6%

  • GDP Growth Rate YoY Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0.8%

• Aug. 22, 10:00 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivers his keynote speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.

• Aug. 22, 5 p.m.: The Central Bank of Paraguay announces its monetary policy decision.

  Policy Rate Prev. 6%

• Aug. 22, 8 p.m.: Peru’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics releases Q2

  • GDP YoY growth data.

  • GDP Growth Rate YoY Prev. 3.9%

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

• Aug. 27: NVIDIA (NVDA), post-market, $1.00

• Aug. 28: IREN (IREN), post-market, $0.18

Governance Votes & Calls

Unlocks

Token Launches