Total notional volume at LMAX Digital was lower in the previous week. Total notional volume from last Monday through Friday came in at $1.9 billion, 33% lower than the week earlier.

Breaking it down per coin, Bitcoin volume came in at $1 billion in the previous week, off 29% from a week earlier. Ether volume came in at $633 million, 28% lower from the week earlier.

Total notional volume over the past 30 days comes in at $11.5 billion.

Looking at average position size over the past 30 days, we’re seeing average bitcoin position size at $6,077 and average position size for ether at $2,528.

Volatility is still struggling to show signs of picking back up in 2022. We’re looking at average daily ranges in bitcoin and ether of $873 and $85 respectively.

Global markets remained under pressure in September, with setbacks in the S&P 500 accelerating to the downside. No assets have been safe in the current market environment, unless we’re talking about the US Dollar and US yields.

Having said that, bitcoin did hold up rather well in September when considering an S&P 500 that was down about 10% on the month. Bitcoin was only off some 3% in September, even outperforming gold, which was down closer to 4% on the month.

Of course, with ether being the more risk correlated cryptocurrency, setbacks here were going to be more pronounced in September. On the month, ether was off some 15%.

But even here there was room for optimism, with a lot of the selling coming from profit taking post a successful Merge and with ether still holding up well ahead of the yearly low, despite fresh yearly lows in US equities.

And although crypto prices were lower in September, the fact that bitcoin broke away from correlations with risk-off showed signs of the market recognizing the value proposition beyond bitcoin being a risk correlated, emerging market asset, and something more attractive as a monetary system and store of value alternative.

Moreover, despite the price declines, crypto adoption has been trending higher and is quite encouraging. Major payment service providers like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Paypal and Stripe are all continuing to build out their crypto payment solutions.

Meanwhile, the net number of entities using bitcoin has continued to grow as well. And major financial institutions continue to enter the market or look to grow their presence. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Fidelity, and Blackrock are just a small handful of such names.

As far as the price outlook goes, there could be additional downside risk in 2022. We don’t believe such a decline will be crypto related and believe it will likely come from additional downside pressure in stocks, setting up a good opportunity for market participants to build more exposure at attractive valuations.