Form 13F THOMPSON INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT For: 8 April

Risk disclosure: trading financial instruments and cryptocurrencies involves high risk, including the potential loss of some or all of invested capital; trading on margin increases these risks. The notice highlights that crypto prices are extremely volatile and that data on the site may not be real-time or accurate, may be provided by market makers, and should not be relied on for trading. Fusion Media disclaims liability for trading losses and prohibits reuse of its data without permission.

Analysis

The prevalence of blunt risk disclaimers and data accuracy caveats is symptomatic of a broader market plumbing issue: price feed reliability and venue-level liability are becoming first-order drivers of crypto liquidity. If venues tighten intraday risk parameters (margins, withdrawal holds, delayed settlement) we should expect a short, sharp spike in realized volatility and funding rate dispersion over days-to-weeks as leverage is flushed out and market-makers widen quotes.

Regulated market infrastructure and certified data providers are the latent beneficiaries: exchanges that offer audited, SIP-like consolidated feeds (CME/ICE), institutional custody and clearing, and oracle services that can produce attestable prices will see flows migrate away from unregulated venues over months. Second-order winners include derivatives desks that intermediate basis/funding trades; losers are retail margin-heavy platforms and leverage-token issuers whose business models depend on continuous, low-friction price feeds.

Key tail risks: a large feed outage or a false price patch could trigger cascading liquidations within hours and create persistent distrust for 2–8 weeks until independent attestations are published. Reversal triggers include rapid third-party attestation (24–72 hours) or regulatory guidance that standardizes acceptable data sources, which would compress implied vol and funding spreads back toward pre-shock levels within 1–3 months.

From a positioning standpoint, expect elevated cross-venue basis, wider spreads on illiquid altcoins, and a window for structured players to monetize funding dislocations and volatility premia. Execution must prioritize operational resilience (settlement/custody certainty) and explicit sizing to survive potential episodic feed failures.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Trade 1 — Regulated infrastructure long: Buy CME (CME) equity or 9–12 month call exposure (e.g., 1x notional in calls) to capture market share shifting into regulated futures/clearing; thesis: 6–12 month realized ADV uplift with 15–25% upside vs downside of 8–12% if spot volumes retract. Size 1–2% of strategy NAV.
• Trade 2 — Short retail-levered venues / long regulated pair: Pair trade long COIN (Coinbase) equity (6–12 months) vs short a basket of high-fee retail exchange/leveraged-token operators (synthetic via options/futures where available). Target asymmetric 2:1 reward:risk if regulatory/ticketing flows favor regulated on-ramps; stop if retail volumes recover >20% QoQ.
• Trade 3 — Short-term volatility play: Buy 2–4 week ATM BTC straddle (via Deribit or listed options) sized to risk 1% NAV to capture expected spike from margin-tightening events; set profit target 150–250% of premium and hard stop at -50% premium. Rationale: immediate days-weeks vol pickup from deleveraging.
• Trade 4 — Basis/funding arbitrage: When perpetual funding >50bps/day, long spot BTC via a regulated custodian and short exchange perpetuals to collect funding (target 2–6% weekly gross); cap leverage 2x, maintain >25% excess collateral, exit when funding compresses <5bps/day or after 4 weeks. Tail risk: exchange settlement failure — limit per-exchange exposure to 0.5% NAV.