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Gold and silver: similar, but different

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Gold and silver: similar, but different Silver is often looked at in gold’s shadow. The price performance of two metals is 80% correlated. We find that the best way to model silver prices is by looking at gold prices.

Commodity Research – Gold and silver: similar, but different

Highlights

  • Silver is often looked at in gold’s shadow. The price performance of two metals is 80% correlated. We find that the best way to model silver prices is by looking at gold prices.
  • However, we identify key differences between the two metals. Whereas gold operates like a currency or monetary asset, silver behaves more like a ‘normal’ commodity, responding to changes in supply and demand.
  • Silver is likely to trade around US$23/oz next year, up from just below US$20/oz currently.

Silver in gold’s shadow

Silver’s price performance is 80% correlated with gold’s price performance. When investor sentiment toward gold turns more positive, optimism toward silver usually follows. For example, as gold prices rose in January 2016 and inflows into gold ETPs surged, silver prices and ETP inflows substantially rose in February 2016.

We find that the best way to model silver prices is to look at gold prices and a number of silver supply and demand indicators. Modelling silver prices on gold alone can give a R-squaredi of 55%. We can enhance the model by looking adding specific silver supply and demand indicators. That raises the R-squared to close to 70%.

When modelling gold prices, we found that physical supply and demand did not help explain prices. In contrast, for silver indicators of supply and demand matters.

More than 50% of silver’s demand comes from industrial fabrication, whereas less than 10% of gold demand comes from that sector. We found global manufacturing PMIs to be a good proxy for industrial demand.

Changes in futures exchange silver inventory and lagged changes in global mining capital expenditure (capex) provide a good proxy for supply of silver. Increases in exchange inventory indicate that more of the metal is readily available. As 75% of silver comes as a by-product of mining for other metals we look at aggregate mining capex across the top 100 metal miners. We lag that change in capex by 18 months as its takes time for changes in investment to translate into changes in supply.

etfs1

(Click to enlarge)

Out of sample testing from 2014 shows that the model performs well and captures key turning points in silver’s performance.

etfs2

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The big spike in silver’s price in 2010-2011 is very difficult to explain. Anecdotally it was accounted for by the market’s reaction to central bank expansion of their balance sheets in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

However, the fact that central bank balance sheets remained bloated for some time afterwards and that silver prices deflated indicates that the price gains were overdone and we believe that period was effectively a price bubble.

Silver to US$23/oz

We expect gold to rise to US$1440/oz in 2017. We assume that global manufacturing PMIs will still be weighed-down by poor performance in large developed economies (outside of US) but get some uplift from the US and emerging markets and therefore rise by a modest 1%. To be conservative, we also assume that exchange inventory, which has been elevated recently, does not decline. Lastly following the 20% y-o-y decline in miner capex 6 months ago, we have an input for the 18-month lagged capex factor in the model. Based on these inputs, silver is likely to rise by just under 20%, to just over US$23/oz.

Exploring silver fundamentals

While the model presented above displays a high R-square, it ties the price of one commodity to another without exploring all of the metal’s own fundamentals.

For illustrative purposes we remove gold prices from the model and introduce some of the explanitory variables from our gold model into the silver model. This second model has a lower R-square and the forecasting power of the model is more comprimised by the 20110-2011 bubble than the simple model.

We find a number of interesting observations from this excerise:
• Unlike for gold, nominal treasury yields are not a significant explanitory variable for silver. This accords with the fact that gold behaves more like a currency/fiancial asset than silver.
• While consumer price inflation (CPI) is a statisticaly significant driver for silver, producer price inflation (PPI) is statistically stronger. This reflects silver’s industrial qualities.
• In contrast to gold, supply of the silver tends to influence its price. Because mine supply of gold represents only a tiny fraction of the above ground stock of gold, and a large amount of gold is held in bullion and jewellery form, changes in mine supply account for very little of the gold that changes hands each year. In contrast a large amount of silver mined goes into industrial applications and thefore is ‘consumed’ until the goods using silver, such as electrical products or photovoltaic panels, is recycled. We measure silver supply in three different ways: silver ore production, change in exchange inventory and an 18-month lag to miner capex.

• Like gold, silver priced in US Dollars is driven by the trade-weighted US Dollar exchange rate.
• Like gold, sentiment towards the metal measured by futures market specualtive positioing is a significant explanitory variable.

Summary of expansive silver model:

etfs3

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Application of this second model is more difficult, because it does not deal with the 2010-2011 bubble so well. Also current current specualtive positioning in silver futures looks very streteched. Futures market optimism was no-where near this high, even in the 2010-2011 bubble and so a model calibrated on historic data, would look to forecast silver prices substantially higher than where they are today.

etfs4

(Click to enlarge)

Using the same assumption for currency movement we had in our gold model and consistent movements in PPI inflation as we had for CPIii, we look at what price the model would give us. We also assume that speculative positioning in silver remains elevated, but not as overstretched as they are right nowiii. We assume that ore production supply or exchange inventory don’t increase and that lagged capex in mining declines 20% (as in the simple model). This model gives us a price close to US$25/oz (25% increase) in 2017. However, we believe the first simple model is likely to give more reliable results. The second model simply helps us the understand some of the fundamental drivers of silver better.

i A measure of how close the fitted data and actual data are. 0% means that the model explains none of the variability and 100% means the model explains all the variability.
ii We assumed CPI inflation will rise from 0.8% to 1.1% in the gold model and PPI inflation rise from 0% to 0.5% in the silver model.
iii Speculative positioning is currently above 87,000 contracts. We assume positioning trims to 40,000 contracts, which is elevated compared to the 27,000 series average.

For more information contact:

ETF Securities Research team
ETF Securities (UK) Limited
T +44 (0) 207 448 4336
E info@etfsecurities.com

Important Information

The analyses in the above tables are purely for information purposes. They do not reflect the performance of any ETF Securities’ products . The futures and roll returns are not necessarily investable.

General

This communication has been provided by ETF Securities (UK) Limited (“ETFS UK”) which is authorised and regulated by the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”).

This communication is only targeted at qualified or professional investors.

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21Shares lanserar Toncoin Staking ETP (TONN)

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21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) och ett dotterbolag till 21.co, tillkännager stolt lanseringen av 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP. Denna banbrytande produkt ger investerare ett sömlöst sätt att engagera sig i ekosystemet för staking och tjäna belöningar utan ansträngning.

21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) och ett dotterbolag till 21.co, tillkännager stolt lanseringen av 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP. Denna banbrytande produkt ger investerare ett sömlöst sätt att engagera sig i ekosystemet för staking och tjäna belöningar utan ansträngning.

Toncoin Staking ETP presenterar en innovativ lösning för investerare som söker exponering för insatsbelöningar utan komplexiteten med att sätta upp och hantera en insatsnod. Med 21Shares ETP kan investerare nu dra nytta av fördelarna med att satsa Toncoin samtidigt som de utnyttjar likviditeten och bekvämligheten på traditionella finansmarknader.

”Vår 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP öppnar upp en ny horisont för investerare och ger en problemfri inkörsport till att satsa belöningar inom blockchain-ekosystemet”, sa Ophelia Snyder, medgrundare och VD för 21Shares. ”Vi är dedikerade till att bemyndiga investerare med innovativa produkter som Toncoin Staking ETP, vilket bekräftar vårt engagemang för att driva utvecklingen av investeringsmöjligheter för blockchain.”

Nyckelfunktioner i 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP:

  • Toncoin (TON): En decentraliserad lager 1-blockkedja, nu känd som ”The Open Network” efter förvärvet av TON Foundation. Toncoin fungerar som den ursprungliga valutan för TON-nätverket.
  • Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Consensus: TON använder en PoS-konsensusmodell för skalbarhet och nätverkstillförlitlighet, och erbjuder snabba, transparenta och säkra betalningstjänster med minimala avgifter.
  • Mission: The Open Network syftar till att skapa ett heltäckande ekosystem av användarvända tjänster som superappen WeChat, som erbjuder produkter som en decentraliserad lagring, decentraliserad VPN, en betalningslösning och en inbyggd plånbok för att hålla krypto direkt i meddelandeappen. Det kännetecknas av dess gemenskapsdrivna tillvägagångssätt och flexibla arkitektur, som tillgodoser behoven hos typiska konsumenter.
  • Skalbarhet: TONs avancerade skalbarhet säkerställer snabb avvecklingstid för transaktioner på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt, vilket möjliggör snabb nätverkstillväxt utan negativa effekter på miljön.
  • Stöd från Telegram: Trots separation stöder Telegram TON som sin favoritplattform för web3-infrastruktur, vilket framhäver dess engagemang för blockchain-innovation.

21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP kommer att vara tillgänglig för handel på SIX Exchange från och med onsdagen den 27 mars 2024, vilket ger investerare en sömlös väg att engagera sig i Toncoin-insatser och utnyttja de potentiella belöningarna med insatsekosystemet.

För mer information om 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP, besök 21Shares hemsida.

NamnISINKortnamnValutaBörsListningsdatum
21Shares Toncoin Staking ETPCH1297762812TONN SEUSDSIX Swiss Exchange27 mars 2024

Om 21.co/21Shares

21.co är världens ledande företag när det gäller att tillhandahålla tillgång till krypto genom enkla och lättanvända produkter. 21.co är moderbolag till 21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) – som drivs av Onyx, en proprietär teknologiplattform som används för att emittera och driva cryptocurrency ETP för 21Shares och tredje part. Företaget grundades 2018 av Hany Rashwan och Ophelia Snyder. 21Sharesis registrerat i Zürich, Schweiz med kontor i Zürich, London och New York. För mer information, besök 21Shares hemsida.

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FUD vs. Fundamentals: What Happened This Week in Crypto?

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Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) have clouded Ethereum's business prospects after CoinDesk reported on March 20 that Ethereum’s Github repository seemed to confirm rumors about ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If true, this could be business as usual for the regulator as it nears its deadline for a decision on ETH spot ETFs on May 23. Nevertheless, statements about the investigations are vague and ambiguous, whether they're focused on the Ethereum Foundation or the companies dealing with it, making it a curious case to monitor closely.

• Ethereum: FUD vs. Fundamentals

• Arbitrum Doubles Down on Dencun’s Cost-Efficiency

• Optimism Strides Towards Full Decentralization

• Can This Major Upgrade Help Fantom Level Up With Solana?

Ethereum: FUD vs. Fundamentals

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) have clouded Ethereum’s business prospects after CoinDesk reported on March 20 that Ethereum’s Github repository seemed to confirm rumors about ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If true, this could be business as usual for the regulator as it nears its deadline for a decision on ETH spot ETFs on May 23. Nevertheless, statements about the investigations are vague and ambiguous, whether they’re focused on the Ethereum Foundation or the companies dealing with it, making it a curious case to monitor closely.

How did the market react? Nothing dramatic. In the past week, despite Ethereum experiencing a 10% drop on the day of Coindesk’s report, it quickly recovered the following day with a 10% rebound and shrugging off the uncertainty, ultimately closing the week with a modest 1.78% gain. The below on-chain metrics are also worth noting:

• ETH deposits on centralized exchanges increased by ~3%, well within the 3-5% average increases seen in May 2021, 2022, and 2023, which is understandable as investors capitalize on reaching the $4K milestone.

• The market-value-to-realized-value (MVRV) is one of crypto’s leading on-chain indicators comparing Ethereum’s current market price to its historical average transaction price, to estimate its valuation based on past trends.. As shown in Figure 1, the MVRV went from 2.23 on March 13 to 1.65 on March 24, indicating that the network continues to be undervalued when compared to previous bull runs. For example, in May 2021, the MVRV Z-score was at 5.57 when Ethereum traded at around $3.9K.

Figure 1: Ethereum’s MVRV Z-Score (7D Moving Average)

Source: Glassnode

On a more positive note, the biggest news for Ethereum was arguably BlackRock’s announcement of tokenizing treasury bonds and repo agreements. The asset manager has partnered with Securitize as a transfer agent and tokenization platform to launch their yield-bearing fund, BUIDL, on top of Ethereum. As shown in Figure 2, Ethereum accounts for 80.33% of tokenized assets, if we exclude fiat-collateralized stablecoins. BlackRock has joined the likes of Franklin Templeton and Citigroup, among others, in tokenizing real-world assets. The deployment on Ethereum reiterates our thesis that the network will continue playing a vital role across the tokenization realm. So far, there has been a total of over $2 billion worth of commodities and government securities, among other traditional assets tokenized on several networks. Thanks to blockchain technology, these tokenized assets boast several advantages over their traditional form due to their transparency, around-the-clock trading, and faster settlement.

Figure 2: Tokenization Market Share by Chain

Source: 21.co on Dune Analytics

On the fundamental side, Ethereum’s core developers have launched an initiative called “pump the gas” to raise the gas block limit from 30 to 40 million (and even more), decreasing gas fees on Ethereum’s mainnet by as much as 33%. The gas block limit is the maximum amount of gas that all transactions combined can consume within a single block. The discussion of expanding the gas block limit has been up for debate since Vitalik brought it up in January 2024. However, some are not in favor of the initiative, arguing that EIP-4844 has already increased the block size and that it could lead to potential risks of network spam and attacks.

Arbitrum Doubles Down on Dencun’s Cost-Efficiency

With Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum all witnessing transaction fees drop by over 90% post-Dencun’s activation, the total number of transacting addresses across their networks has almost doubled since then, as seen below in Figure 3. However, Arbitrum has taken a step further by introducing the ATLAS upgrade, aiming to drive fees down even more. Specifically, ATLAS decreased what’s known as the “L1 surplus fees” from 32 gwei to zero while lowering the L2 base fees from 0.1 to 0.01 gwei, helping the network achieve a median transaction fee of ~$0.002, the lowest since October 2022. Applications built on Arbitrum can reap the benefit of the upgrade right away without any modifications from their end, while L3 networks built on top of Arbitrum, using its Orbit framework, need to implement the upgrade to capitalize on the blob posting mechanism to experience lower fees.

Figure 3: Number of Transacting Addresses across Base vs. Optimism vs, Arbitrum

Source: msibl7 on Dune

Optimism Strides Towards Full Decentralization

On the other hand, Optimism is progressing towards its vision of full decentralization. For context, the network currently relies on a single sequencer, a validator that posts transaction data from Optimism on Ethereum, run by the Optimism Foundation itself. This sequencer is overseen by an elected security council, which acts as a custodian managing the protocol upgrades and the security of the network by ensuring that the sequencer is acting honestly, amongst other security-related tasks. This means that only a handful of eight elected individuals can contest the validity of transactions if they suspect any malicious behavior. Nevertheless, this was a temporary setup until Optimism released its “Fault Proof” system, which determines the validity of transactions before they’re posted on Ethereum’s mainnet. This enables a proactive rather than a reactive approach to maintaining transaction integrity. In line with this, Optimism rolled out the second iteration of the system on Sepolia testnet after releasing the first in October of last year, with the full launch expected later this year, where anyone can submit a fault-proof and dispute the validity of transactions.

Can This Major Upgrade Help Fantom Level Up With Solana?

The Ethereum alternative blockchain is set to implement its upcoming Sonic upgrade in the spring of 2024. Although the date isn’t determined yet, the next network iteration will position Fantom as one of the most scalable networks within the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem, capable of rivaling Solana’s efficiency. Namely, Sonic introduces the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), a new operating system facilitating close to 2000 transactions per second (TPS) based on the latest testnet results while adopting parallelization to enhance transaction throughput. Further, Sonic achieves transaction finality in under a second, with transaction fees costing less than a cent while introducing Carmen, a new database model that reduces the storage costs for validators by close to 90%. This enables them to participate in the network’s security validation in a cost-effective manner while expediting the time required for the foundation to spin up a new archival validator node from several weeks to 36 hours.

All in all, the excitement in anticipation of the upgrade can be seen with Fantom’s price growing by 200% over the last 30 days, while its DEX trading volume has surged by close to 12-fold, growing from $5M and peaking at $60M last week. Fantom’s stablecoin assets under management has also increased by about 150% over the same period since the lows of October 2023, implying that new users are increasingly depositing capital into the network to experiment with its ecosystem, akin to what was seen during the run-up of the ETF-led rally last October. Nevertheless, Fantom shows promising growth prospects as its P/E ratio continues to decrease despite its recent price gains, as shown below in Figure 4. This indicates that transaction volume and network utilization are outpacing its market capitalization growth, potentially implying that Fantom remains relatively undervalued.

Figure 4: NVT: The P/E-Equivalent of Blockchain Networks

Source: Glassnode

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The information provided does not constitute a prospectus or other offering material and does not contain or constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Some of the information published herein may contain forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. The information contained herein may not be considered as economic, legal, tax or other advice and users are cautioned to base investment decisions or other decisions solely on the content hereof.

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BlackRock säger att det finns låg efterfrågan på Ethereum

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Robert Mitchnick, chef för digitala tillgångar på BlackRock, har avslöjat att kunderna till finansgiganten visar låg efterfrågan på Ethereum, den näst största kryptovalutan efter börsvärde. Samtidigt finns det "väldigt lite intresse överallt", vilket innebär att investeringsbolaget inte ens överväger mindre kryptovalutor.

Robert Mitchnick, chef för digitala tillgångar på BlackRock, har avslöjat att kunderna till finansgiganten visar låg efterfrågan på Ethereum, den näst största kryptovalutan efter börsvärde. Samtidigt finns det ”väldigt lite intresse överallt”, vilket innebär att investeringsbolaget inte ens överväger mindre kryptovalutor.

Mitchnick har erkänt att kryptovalutacommunityt vill se finansjätten utforska fler alternativ, men han säger att BlackRock fortfarande främst fokuserar på Bitcoin. Bitcoin, enligt chefen, är ”överväldigande prioritet nummer ett.”

Nyligen gick BlackRock med i tokeniseringsracet genom att lansera en ny fond baserad på Ethereum-nätverket. Fonden, som officiellt lanserades tidigare i veckan, gör det möjligt att tjäna amerikanska dollaravkastning med hjälp av blockchain-teknik.

I november ansökte BlackRock också om att lansera en Ethereum börshandlad fond. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sköt dock upp sitt beslut om denna ansökan tidigare i mars.

Som rapporterats av U.Today kollapsade oddsen för att en Ethereum ETF skulle godkännas på grund av regulatoriskt tryck. För en vecka sedan bad senatorerna Jack Reed och Laphonza Butler specifikt SEC-ordförande Gary Gensler att inte godkänna ETFer för fler kryptovaluta-tokens.

Samtidigt har SEC enligt uppgift lanserat en aggressiv kampanj för att klassificiera Ether som ett värdepapper, vilket ytterligare minskar sannolikheten för att en Ether-baserad spot-ETF ska godkännas inom en snar framtid.

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