General election campaign midpoint: Lonely Sunak fights battle on three fronts

Published

1 year ago

June 15, 2024

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This week the leaders were selling their visions to voters as they launched their manifestos, and Sunak and Starmer went head to head in Grimbsy at the Sky News live election special The Battle For Number 10.

Watch their journeys in the latest week in our animated map below.

This campaign is being fought on new electoral boundaries, with many constituencies undergoing significant changes since 2019.

For the purposes of this analysis, we use notional results based on calculations by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, Honorary Professors at the University of Exeter, which estimate the 2019 election seat results if they had taken place on the new constituency boundaries.

Manifesto week

We’re now more than halfway through the general election campaign and voting will soon be under way as postal ballots start to arrive through letterboxes.

In the final pushes to persuade the electorate, this week the parties have been releasing their manifestos.

The choices they’ve made about where to launch them reveal a narrative of safety.

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The prime minister chose Northamptonshire South in the East Midlands to launch the Conservative manifesto, where they have a 42.4% majority.

This is Andrea Leadsom’s old seat, one of the safer Conservative constituencies in that region. Boundaries have changed over time, but none of its predecessors have been Labour.

But it’s starting to look like there are no safe Tory seats. Recent Sky News/YouGov MRP polling suggests they could lose it, placing this seat as a “toss-up” Conservative hold, i.e. too close to call. If Labour won here, the required swing of 21.2 means they’d be well into decisive majority territory.

On Thursday Sir Keir Starmer chose Manchester Central as the launching pad for Labour’s manifesto. This is Lucy Powell’s seat and her majority is 44.4%.

This is home turf, and a rare venture into Labour heartlands for Starmer, who so far has only visited seats his party already hold three times in his 23 constituency tally – a safe choice for a safety first manifesto.

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Both location choices are key areas of support for the main parties. The Greens did the same in choosing to launch in Hove, the home of their first and only seat in the House of Commons, Brighton Pavilion.

Sir Ed Davey, who has been keeping everyone guessing throughout his campaign, made the curious choice of Hackney South & Shoreditch, a seat that has been Labour since its creation, represented by chair of The Public Accounts Committee Meg Hillier since 2005.

But he was soon back on the attack in Tory territory, following up with a visit to ride a rollercoaster at Thorpe Park in Surrey.

Where are the troops?

The prime minister has cut a lone figure on the campaign trail, rarely seen with senior members of his party or indeed visiting their seats.

As Sky News revealed earlier this week, his image and Conservative Party branding have often been absent on much of their campaign material. One man who did make an appearance on Andrea Jenkyns’ leaflets for Leeds South West was Reform leader Nigel Farage, and that’s indicative of Sunak’s problem.

In the first two weeks he was fighting on two fronts, but now it seems the new Reform leader has just opened a third. Sunak’s woeful week ended with a YouGov poll suggesting his party could have now even dropped into third place.

So which cabinet ministers in trouble have had a visit from Sunak to boost their chances?

This week, none of them, and since the start of the campaign, just two of them.

Those were Work an Pensions Secretary Mel Stride’s Devon Central in the first week of campaigning, and Michelle Donelan, Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary in Melksham & Devizes in the second week.

He has visited four other ministerial seats, all of which polling has suggested could be at risk. Those were Justin Tomlinson in Swindon North, Jacob Young in Redcar, David Johnston in Didcot & Wantage, and David Rutley in Macclesfield.

So far no visit from the PM to the likes of Penny Mordaunt, Johnny Mercer and Grant Shapps, all of whom are said to be in a close fight for their parliamentary careers.

Sir Keir Starmer has also spent little time in shadow cabinet constituencies, instead taking many of them on the road with him to seats he’s targeting from the Tories.

Some have also been deployed in key areas where they’re popular, like deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner who has been spending time in the north of England seats that Labour lost to the Conservatives in recent elections. She’s also been hitting “true blue” northern areas like Macclesfield and Altrincham & Sale West, which have never been represented by a Labour MP.

Battle is in the areas that take Labour to a large majority

At Sky’s event on Wednesday, Starmer let slip that he’s expecting to be in government.

A national uniform swing of 8.3 points from the Conservatives would make Labour the largest party, one of 12.7 would deliver them a majority. If Labour uses its vote more efficiently than in the past and gains extra seats in Scotland then it reduces the overall swing required.

So far, Starmer has visited nine target constituencies which require swings of less 8.3 points vs 11 which require a greater vote swing. One of those which he visited this this week was Redcar, where Sunak went last week.

Labour’s candidate Anna Turley is trying to win it back after losing to the Conservatives in 2019. Last week we outlined its importance for each party’s campaign.

He has only visited five places where the swing required is more than 12.7, such as Nuneaton, a Brexit voting constituency in the West Midlands held by Labour in the early Blair years but Conservative since Cameron. The required swing to gain for Labour is 14.5 points.

Twenty-one of the 34 seats that Sunak has visited are Con-Lab battles that he defends. Seven have swings of less than 8.3 for it to be a Labour gain, while eight require swings bigger than 12.7.

Then there is the final front on which Sunak is defending: against the Lib Dems. Sunak has been to 11 seats where he’s fighting them off, such as Horsham in West Sussex this week where the Lib Dems need a swing of 15.5.

All bar two of Davey’s 27 visits have been to targets the Tories defend, where the average swing needed is 22.4 points.

Dr Hannah Bunting is a Sky News elections analyst and Co-director of The Elections Centre at the University of Exeter.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

Politics

Bitcoin treads water at $90K as whales eat the Ethereum dip: Finance Redefined

Published

10 hours ago

December 5, 2025

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Bitcoin treads water at K as whales eat the Ethereum dip: Finance Redefined

Cryptocurrency markets saw another week of consolidation following last week’s long-awaited market recovery.

While Bitcoin (BTC) remained above the key $90,000 psychological level, investor sentiment continued to be dominated by “fear,” with a marginal improvement from 20 to 25 within the week, according to CoinMarketCap’s Fear & Greed index.

In the wider crypto space, the Ether (ETH) treasury trade appears to be unwinding, as the monthly acquisitions by Ethereum digital asset treasuries (DATs) fell 81% in the past three months from August’s peak.

Still, the biggest corporate Ether holder, BitMine Immersion Technologies, continued to amass ETH, while other treasury firms carried on with their fundraising efforts for future acquisitions.

*Fear & Greed index, all-time chart. Source: CoinMarketCap*

Investors are also awaiting the key interest rate decision during the US Federal Reserve’s upcoming meeting on Wednesday to provide more cues about monetary policy leading into 2026.

Markets are pricing in an 87% chance of a 25 basis point interest rate cut, up from 62% a month ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

*Interest rate cut probabilities. Source: CMEgroup.com*

Ethereum treasury trade unwinds 80% as handful of whales dominate buys

The Ethereum treasury trade appears to be unwinding as monthly acquisitions continue to decline since the August high, though the largest players continue to scoop up billions of the Ether supply.

Investments from Ethereum DATs fell 81% in the past three months, from 1.97 million Ether in August to 370,000 ETH in November, according to Bitwise, an asset management firm.

“ETH DAT bear continues,” wrote Max Shennon, senior research associate at Bitwise, in a Tuesday X post.

Despite the slowdown, some companies with stronger financial backgrounds continued to accumulate the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency or raise funds for future purchases.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate Ether holder, accumulated about 679,000 Ether worth $2.13 billion over the past month, completing 62% of its target to accumulate 5% of the ETH supply, according to data from the Strategicethreserve.

BitMine holds an additional $882 million worth of cash according to the data aggregator, which may signal more incoming Ether accumulation.

*Top corporate Ether holders. Source:* *Strategicethreserve.xyz*

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Citadel causes uproar by urging SEC to regulate DeFi tokenized stocks

Market maker Citadel Securities has recommended that the US Securities and Exchange Commission tighten regulations on decentralized finance regarding tokenized stocks, causing backlash from crypto users.

Citadel Securities told the SEC in a letter on Tuesday that DeFi developers, smart-contract coders, and self-custody wallet providers should not be given “broad exemptive relief” for offering trading of tokenized US equities.

It argued that DeFi trading platforms likely fall under the definitions of an “exchange” or “broker-dealer” and should be regulated under securities laws if offering tokenized stocks.

“Granting broad exemptive relief to facilitate the trading of a tokenized share via DeFi protocols would create two separate regulatory regimes for the trading of the same security,” it argued. “This outcome would be the exact opposite of the “technology-neutral” approach taken by the Exchange Act.”

Citadel’s letter, made in response to the SEC looking for feedback on how it should approach regulating tokenized stocks, has drawn considerable backlash from the crypto community and organizations advocating for innovation in the blockchain space.

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Arthur Hayes warns Monad could crash 99%, calls it high-risk “VC coin”

Crypto veteran Arthur Hayes has issued a warning over Monad, saying the recently launched layer-1 blockchain could plunge as much as 99% and end up as another failed experiment driven by venture capital hype rather than real adoption.

Speaking on Altcoin Daily, the former BitMEX chief described the project as “another high FDV, low-float VC coin,” arguing that its token structure alone puts retail traders at risk. FDV stands for Fully Diluted Value, which is the market value of a crypto project if all its tokens were already in circulation.

According to Hayes, projects with a large gap between FDV and circulating supply often experience early price spikes, followed by deep selloffs once insider tokens unlock. “It’s going to be another bear chain,” Hayes said, adding that while every new coin gets an initial pump, that does not mean it will develop a lasting use case.

Hayes said most new layer-1 networks ultimately fail, with only a handful likely to retain long-term relevance. He identified Bitcoin, Ether, Solana (SOL) and Zcash (ZEC) as the small group of protocols he expects to survive the next cycle.

Last year, Monad raised $225 million in funding from venture capital firm Paradigm. The layer-1 blockchain went live on Monday, accompanied by an airdrop of its MON token.

*Monad’s MON token up 40% since launch. Source:* *CoinMarketCap*

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$25 billion crypto lending market now led by “transparent” players: Galaxy

The crypto lending market has become more transparent than ever, led by the likes of Tether, Nexo and Galaxy, and has just hit an aggregate loan book of nearly $25 billion outstanding in the third quarter.

The size of the crypto lending market has increased by more than 200% since the beginning of 2024, according to Galaxy Research. Its latest quarter puts it at its highest since its peak in Q1 2022.

However, it has yet to return to its peak of $37 billion at that time.

The main difference is the number of new centralized finance lending platforms and much more transparency, said Galaxy’s head of research, Alex Thorn.

Thorn said on Sunday that he was proud of the chart and the transparency of its contributors, adding that it was a “big change from prior market cycles.”

*The crypto lending landscape has seen many new platforms in the past three years. Source: Alex Thorn*

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Portal to Bitcoin raises $25 million and launches atomic OTC desk

Bitcoin-native interoperability protocol Portal to Bitcoin has raised $25 million in funding amid the launch of what it describes as an atomic over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk.

According to a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the company raised $25 million in a round led by digital asset lender JTSA Global. The fundraise follows previous investments by Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, Arrington Capital and others.

Alongside the fresh funding, the company rolled out its Atomic OTC desk, promising “instant, trustless cross-chain settlement of large block trades.” The newly deployed service is reminiscent of crosschain atomic swaps offered by THORChain, Chainflip, and more Bitcoin-focused systems such as Liquality and Boltz.

What sets Portal to Bitcoin apart is its focus on the Bitcoin-anchored crosschain OTC market for institutions and whales, along with its tech stack. “Portal provides the infrastructure to make Bitcoin the settlement layer for global asset markets, without bridges, custodians, or wrapped assets,” said Chandra Duggirala, founder and CEO of Portal.

Decentralization — *Portal to Bitcoin team members, from left to right: co-founder and chief technology officer Manoj Duggirala, founder and CEO Chandra Duggirala, and co-founder George Burke. Source: Portal to Bitcoin*

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DeFi market overview

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red.

The Canton (CC) token fell 18%, marking the week’s biggest decline in the top 100, followed by the Starknet (STRK) token, down 16% on the weekly chart.

*Total value locked in DeFi. Source: DefiLlama*

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.