Weekly Highlights

• January 10th was a big day for micro-structure: TCV dominating BETS had a reverse split and spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading. Unsurprisingly, measures such as median trade size declined for BETS, while average notional actually increased slightly, as a result of the reverse split. The market share of off-exchange trading increased and brought with it an increase in midpoint and intraspread activity while there was a notable decrease in market share of inverted venues. Average quote duration in BETS increased, but at the cost of less activity towards the end of the day. IntelligentCross continued to deliver street leading post trade performance, as the number of active subscribers in the name rose post the reverse split.

• Neither post-split BETS nor the new Bitcoin ETFs have much of an auction presence. But the new ETFs differ from an available universe of Bitcoin aligned names such as miners and specialty brokers, in being more dominated by single share trades, off-exchange trading, and intra-spread pricing. While the new ETFs and the Bitcoin aligned universe share similar intraday volume smiles, quote duration in the new ETFs is generally longer with less of a pick up towards the close. Intraday spreads are similar as well, but the ETFs reach their narrowest slightly earlier than the aligned universe and widen out more into the close. In terms of trading friction, we are seeing that the new ETFs have in general slightly better post trade quote stability and lower markouts than their non ETF counterparts. Subscribers active on IntelligentCross are generally seeing 50% lower markouts after 500ms in the new ETFs versus exchange averages.

• If you haven't yet leveraged our platform to boost your trading outcomes, we urge you to connect with us. Our displayed ASPEN quotes are available through our market data feed, IQX, which can be accessed directly or via providers such as Exegy, MayStreet, Redline, and ACTIV.