3 months ago
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Crypto traders are deleveraging aft Wednesday's FOMC minutes showed the Fed is looking to clasp rates dependable until ostentation improves and discussed pausing oregon slowing the equilibrium expanse runoff.
Still, the output connected the 10-year Treasury dropped and the dollar weakened. Cryptocurrencies are higher, with the CoinDesk 20 Index up 1.4% and bitcoin 1.2% implicit 24 hours. The gains travel remarks by Czech National Bank Governor Ales Michl, who reiterated the case for bitcoin arsenic a reserve asset, and President Donald Trump saying he'd ended “Joe Biden’s warfare connected Bitcoin and crypto.”
Bitcoin traders are taking a wait-and-see attack arsenic waning demand, a deficiency of blockchain enactment and faltering liquidity inflows constituent to potential pullback to $86,000. It's presently implicit $97,000. Their stance is disposable not lone successful declining volatility, but besides a important driblet successful unfastened interest.
Open involvement connected bitcoin futures contracts has fallen beneath $60 billion from astir $70 cardinal successful precocious January, Coinglass information shows. The diminution comes amid what appears to beryllium an unraveling of the memecoin craze arsenic caller struggles, specified arsenic Argentina's Libra debacle, dampened enthusiasm.
“Right now, the marketplace is successful a spot of a cooldown phase,” David Gogel, VP of strategy and operations astatine the dYdX Foundation, told CoinDesk. “Bitcoin’s been holding up, but aft failing to interruption past $105k successful January, we’ve seen superior inflows dilatory down and speculative assets similar Solana and memecoins instrumentality a hit.”
That deed is disposable successful the aggregate unfastened involvement for futures contracts for SOL, the Solana blockchain's autochthonal token. OI dropped from astir $6 cardinal precocious past period to astir $4.3 cardinal now, according to information from TheTie. Solana is 1 of the starring networks for memecoins.
“The marketplace should enactment attuned to broader macro-drivers and geopolitical developments that could trigger moves,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake O told CoinDesk. These geopolitical developments see rising tensions betwixt Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to a not-so-subtle nationalist exchange.
Declining leverage and a displacement distant from riskier plays suggest the marketplace whitethorn beryllium entering a caller phase. What that really entails remains to beryllium seen. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) becomes the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging level Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.
Feb. 24: At epoch 115968, investigating of Ethereum’s Pecta upgrade connected the Holesky testnet starts.
Feb. 25, 9:00 a.m.: Ethereum Foundation probe squad Reddit AMA.
Feb. 27: Solana-based L2 Sonic SVM (SONIC) mainnet motorboat (“Mobius”).
Macro
Feb. 20, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada reports January’s shaper terms ostentation data.
PPI MoM Est. 0.8% vs. Prev. 0.2%
PPI YoY Prev. 4.1%
Feb. 20, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims study for the week ended Feb. 15.
Initial Jobless Claims Est. 215K vs. Prev. 213K
Feb. 20, 5:00 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler gives a code titled "Navigating Inflation Waves While Riding connected the Phillips Curve" successful Washington. Livestream link.
Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m.: Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications reports January’s user terms ostentation data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.1% vs. Prev. 3%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.6%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.6%
Feb. 21, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases February’s U.S. Purchasing Managers' Index (Flash) reports.
Composite PMI Prev. 52.7
Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.2
Services PMI Est. 53 vs Prev. 52.9
Earnings
Feb. 20: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.88
Feb. 24: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, $-0.18
Feb. 25: Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, $-0.17
Feb. 25: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.09
Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, $-0.13
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Sky DAO is discussing withdrawing a portion of the Smart Burn Engine’s LP tokens to halt malicious actors from acquiring the tokens.
DYdX DAO is discussing expanding the bounds connected the maximum notional worth of liquidations that tin hap wrong a fixed artifact connected the dYdX protocol to enhance the protocol’s velocity and ratio of hazard simplification during liquidations.
Unlocks
Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating proviso worthy $78.6 million.
Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.92% of circulating proviso worthy $34.23 million.
Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating proviso worthy $81.07 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 20: Pi Network (PI) to beryllium listed connected MEXC, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, CoinW, DigiFinex and others.
Conferences:
CoinDesk's Consensus to instrumentality spot in Hong Kong connected Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto connected May 14-16. Use codification DAYBOOK and prevention 15% connected passes.
Day 3 of 3: Consensus Hong Kong
Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)
Feb. 24: RWA London Summit 2025
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
March 2-3: Crypto Expo Europe (Bucharest, Romania)
March 8: Bitcoin Alive (Sydney, Australia)
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
PI, the autochthonal token of the Pi Network, debuted astatine $1.70 and instantly roseate to $2.00 earlier losing 50% of its worth successful the adjacent 2 hours.
The web claims to person 60 cardinal users. There are less than 1 cardinal progressive wallets.
Based connected a self-reported circulating supply fig of 6.3 billion, PI presently has a marketplace headdress of $7.8 billion.
The premise down Pi Network is simply a blockchain that allows users to excavation tokens connected their smartphones. It captured a sizeable magnitude of attraction from retail traders and has drawn examination to viral tokens from erstwhile cycles similar SafeMoon.
Token holders look the hazard of a deficiency of liquidity. The token's astir liquid speech is OKX, but 2% marketplace extent — the magnitude of superior required to determination the terms by 2% successful either absorption — is betwixt $33K and $60K. This means an bid of accidental $100K would displacement the marketplace considerably to contiguous volatile trading conditions.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC volatility connected derivatives has reached a monthly low, declining from an annualized 36.09% to 28.43%.
That contrasts with ETH, which has seen its annualized volatility emergence from 49.43% to 74.72%, according to information published by Deribit.
Roughly $1.5 cardinal worthy of BTC and ETH options are acceptable to expire tomorrow, with astir $5 cardinal expiring successful a week's time.
The full unfastened involvement crossed each trading pairs connected retail centralized exchanges has risen by 2.10% connected the time to $80.8 billion.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.10% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday to $97,300.67 (24hrs: +1.09%)
ETH is up 0.60% astatine $2,738.90 (24hrs: +0.51%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 1.72% to 3,250.68 (24hrs: +1.67%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 6 bps to 2.99%
BTC backing complaint is astatine 0.0037% (4.0920% annualized) connected Binance
DXY is down 0.18% astatine 106.98
Gold is up 0.60% astatine $2,950,84/oz
Silver is up 1.52% to $33.19/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -1.24% astatine 38,678.04
Hang Seng closed -1.60% astatine 22,576.98
FTSE is down 0.24% astatine 8,690.90
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.62% astatine 5,494.99
DJIA closed Wednesday up 0.16% astatine 44,627.59
S&P 500 closed +0.24% astatine 6,144.15
Nasdaq closed +0.07% astatine 20,056.25
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed unchanged astatine 25,626.16
S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.35% astatine 2,463.68
U.S. 10-year Treasury complaint was down 1 bps astatine 4.53%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.2% to 6,150.50
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.22% astatine 22,200.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.15% to 44,643
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.10 (0.04%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02819 (0.28%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 831 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $54.24
Total Fees: 5.127 BTC / $499,118
CME Futures Open Interest: 172,360 BTC
BTC priced successful gold: 32.8 oz
BTC vs golden marketplace cap: 9.32%
Technical Analysis
Bitcoin has rebounded from the yearly unfastened astatine $93,385, reclaiming the 100-day exponential moving mean connected the regular timeframe.
Over the past 3 heavy sell-offs, the terms has formed higher lows, indicating beardown purchaser involvement astatine the existent scope lows.
However, the short-term 20-day and 50-day EMAs connected the regular timeframe precocious crossed for the archetypal clip since August 5th, signalling a request for caution successful the adjacent term.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed connected Wednesday astatine $318.67 (-4.58%), up 2.01% astatine $325.08 successful pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed astatine $258.67 (-2.25%), up 1.76% astatine $263.22
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed astatine C$25.32 (-3.76%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed astatine $15.78 (-1.68%), up 1.33% astatine $15.99.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed astatine $11.56 (unchanged), up 1.04% astatine $11.68
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed astatine $12.02 (-2.99%), up 1.41% astatine $12.19
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed astatine $9.89 (-1.88%), up 1.81% astatine $10.07
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed astatine $22.78 (-0.26%), unchanged
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed astatine $52.22 (+2.96%), up 0.06% astatine $52.25
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed astatine $48.41 (+4.00%), unchanged
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily nett flow: -$64.1 million
Cumulative nett flows: $40.00 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.170 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily nett flow: $19 million
Cumulative nett flows: $3.18 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.795 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Month-to-date information for apical bridged netflows by web highlights a beardown superior inflow into the Base web since the commencement of the month.
The layer-2 blockchain had a nett inflow of $314 million, much than doubly the magnitude of the second-placed Arbitrum, which has seen an inflow of $115 million.
Inflows to Solana slowed amid liquidity drains caused by aggregate high-profile personage memecoin launches implicit the past month.
While You Were Sleeping
LIBRA Memecoin Fiasco Destroyed $251M successful Investor Wealth, Research Shows (CoinDesk): Nansen’s on-chain analysts accidental 86% of radical who traded the LIBRA token mislaid money, with the full nonaccomplishment of $251 million. The winners enjoyed a full nett of $180 million.
HK to Expand, Open Up Virtual Assets Market (The Standard): At Consensus Hong Kong, SFC CEO Julia Leung announced ASPIRe — a 12-point roadmap to close marketplace imbalances with improved licensing, custody, token frameworks, derivatives trading and borderline lending for nonrecreational investors.
MANTRA Launches Program for Real-World Asset Startups With Google Cloud Support (CoinDesk): Layer-1 blockchain MANTRA’s RWAccelerator backs startups moving connected tokenizing real-world assets by providing mentorship, with method enactment and unreality credits coming from Google.
China Is Likely to Cut Its Benchmark Policy Rate Next Month (CNBC): China's cardinal slope held its cardinal lending rates dependable connected Thursday, prompting expectations of a argumentation easing successful March.
Bank of England’s Gold-Diggers Grapple With Trump-Fueled Frenzy (Bloomberg): Speculation implicit impending U.S. tariffs has forced a tiny BoE squad to extract 12.5 kg golden bars arsenic traders exploit gaps betwixt London spot and U.S. futures prices.
‘Stagflation’ Fears Haunt U.S. Markets Despite Trump’s Pro-Growth Agenda (Reuters): While investors person mostly remained bullish connected U.S. stocks, immoderate interest that the president’s caller tariff measures mightiness thrust up prices and stifle economical growth.
In the Ether
English (US) 