LMAX Digital volume continues to turn up light this week. Total notional volume for Wednesday came in at $384 million, 47% below 30-day average volume.

Bitcoin volume printed $274 million on Wednesday, 37% below 30-day average volume. Ether volume was also off quite a bit, coming in at just $72 million, 63% below 30-day average volume.

Looking at average position size over the past 30 days, we’re seeing average bitcoin position size at $9,108 and average position size for ether at 4,650.

We’ve been seeing signs of a pickup in activity, though volatility has been trending lower overall in 2022. We’re now looking at average daily ranges in bitcoin and ether of $1,766 and $148 respectively.

Volumes have been lower and we are still waiting for that next catalyst to get things going. Technically, the fact that we were in a downtrend heading into this tight period of consolidation suggests the next move will be to the downside.

Fundamentally, crypto is still correlating with movement in US equities. And given we haven’t seen much activity there of late, it all makes sense that we aren’t seeing movement in crypto right now.

There has been some attention around a dip in bitcoin’s hash rate, something that translates to a lower mining difficulty and less secure network. But this attention is overstated, with the pullback coming within a strong uptrend and nothing more than a healthy correction within the trend.

On a positive note, despite all the downturn in markets, Andreessen Horowitz has announced a $4.5 billion fund dedicated to crypto and blockchain startups, with $1.5 billion going to seed investments and $3 billion going to venture investments.