3 months ago
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Cryptocurrency investors look to beryllium adopting a “wait-and-see” attack to the plethora of conflicting headlines appearing. As a result, the BTC Volatility Index (DVOL) connected fashionable options speech Deribit has been dropping since Jan. 20, falling from a precocious of 72 to astir 50.8.
The driblet signals bitcoin's maturation arsenic an asset, according to Tracy Jin, COO of cryptocurrency trading level MEXC. "Rather than reacting sharply to short-term marketplace shocks, BTC is showing signs of stabilization, progressively resembling the dynamics of commodity markets and accepted safe-haven assets,” Jin said.
While FTX creditor payouts person started rolling out, the Libra token debacle conscionable keeps intensifying. The co-creator of the token, Hayden Davis, bragged astir buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei’s interior ellipse up of the memecoin’s launch, according to messages reviewed by CoinDesk.
Meanwhile, Strategy, the largest firm holder of bitcoin, is acceptable to raise an further $2 cardinal by selling zero-coupon convertible notes. The funds raised volition mostly beryllium utilized to accumulate much BTC.
As Brevan Howard Digital’s CEO and CIO — that's conscionable 1 idiosyncratic — stressed astatine Consensus Hong Kong, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has evolved since the illness of FTX, but 24/7 hazard absorption is inactive a necessity.
On the macro front, traders are focusing connected minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January involvement complaint meeting. Indications of the imaginable interaction of accrued tariffs are a peculiar constituent of focus, fixed President Donald Trump’s comments connected tariffs “in the vicinity of 25% for automobiles, semiconductors, and pharmaceutical products.”
Recent U.S.-Russia talks successful Riyadh person led to the appointing of teams to negociate an extremity to the warfare successful Ukraine and commitments to “normalize the operation” of their diplomatic missions. Still, excluding representatives from Ukraine and Europe remains a constituent of contention. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Feb. 19, 9:30 a.m.: Shares of bitcoin-focused fiscal services institution Fold Holdings (FLD) start trading connected Nasdaq.
Feb. 19: High-performance blockchain Monad’s nationalist testnet starts up.
Feb. 19, 11:00 a.m.: The archetypal authoritative State of Sei (SEI) livestream.
Feb. 19, 1:00 p.m.: Hedera (HBAR) mainnet upgrade to v0.58.
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.
Macro
Feb. 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Fed releases minutes of the Jan. 28-29 FOMC Meeting.
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 giving 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%
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, $-0.53
Feb. 25: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.09
Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, $-0.13
Token Events
Governance
Compound DAO is discussing evolving Compound Sandbox into Compound V4 to present streamlined governance, dynamic marketplace parameters, heighten the liquidation mechanism, and amended cross-chain reward distribution.
Aave DAO is discussing expanding the AAVE governance token integration connected the level by adding AAVE collateral enactment to Base.
Uniswap DAO is discussing funding liquidity incentives for Uniswap V4 connected the Unichain web to pull liquidity providers and traders to the protocol.
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.
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 2 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
Sonic, the precocious rebranded token that utilized to beryllium called Fantom, has risen by 37% successful the past week. The surge has been attributed to an increase successful on-chain activity and a boost successful wide sentiment pursuing the rebrand.
The memecoin assemblage is reeling from the contention implicit Argentine President Javier Milei and the Libra token. The marketplace headdress of the assemblage is down 4.4% successful 24 hours to $72.9 cardinal arsenic traders statesman to propulsion liquidity and question the legitimacy of a marketplace galore presumption arsenic an endless rhythm of "pump and dumps."
More than $35 cardinal worthy of worth has exited decentralized concern (DeFi) protocols since mid-December. Part of the slump is tied to dwindling plus prices, but determination has besides been a disproportionate magnitude of outflows from Solana-based liquid staking protocols this week, DefiLlama data shows.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC's CME futures premium has compressed to an annualized 6%, according to information tracked by Paradigm. That's a motion of bullish expectations becoming tempered amid continued sideways terms movement.
LTC, TRX and HYPE pb maturation successful perpetual futures unfastened interest.
BTC and ETH options owed for colony aft February proceed to grounds bullish sentiment, though the premium for calls has reduced to immoderate extent.
Block flows person been mixed with puts bought successful the February expiry.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.34% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday to $96,356.41 (24hrs: +0.79%)
ETH is up 3.25% astatine $2,735.66 (24hrs: +1.54%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 2.80% to 3,195.66 (24hrs: +1.12%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 13 bps to 3.05%
BTC backing complaint is astatine 0.0205% (7.4657% annualized) connected Binance
DXY is up 0.14% astatine 107.20
Gold is up 0.31% astatine $2,944.53/oz
Silver is up 0.59% to $33.05/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -0.27% astatine 39,164.61
Hang Seng closed -0.14% astatine 22,944.24
FTSE is down 0.28% astatine 8,742.27
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.48 astatine 5,507.77
DJIA closed Tuesday unchanged astatine 44,556.34
S&P 500 closed +0.24% astatine 6,129.58
Nasdaq closed +0.07% astatine 20,041.26
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.65% astatine 25,648.84
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.28% astatine 2,497.37
U.S. 10-year Treasury complaint was up 1 bps astatine 4.56%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.1% to 6,140.5
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.1% astatine 22,219
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.16% to 44,571
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.08 (-0.32%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02836 (1.54%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 784 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $53.61
Total Fees: 4.7 BTC / $452,182
CME Futures Open Interest: 172,530 BTC
BTC priced successful gold:32.6 oz
BTC vs golden marketplace cap: 9.26%
Technical Analysis
The SOL-BTC ratio has dropped retired of a multiweek consolidation range.
The method breakdown suggests the anticipation of a continued underperformance by the Solana blockchain's token.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed connected Tuesday astatine $333.97 (-1.11%), up 0.87% astatine $336.88 successful pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed astatine $264.63 (-3.53%), up 1.27% astatine $268.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed astatine C$26.31 (-4.58%).
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed astatine $16.05 (-5.03%), up 1.56% astatine $16.30.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed astatine $11.56 (-5.79%), up 1.12% astatine $11.69.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed astatine $12.39 (-0.96%), down 1.05% astatine $12.26.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed astatine $10.08 (-4.00%), up 1.39% astatine $10.22.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed astatine $22.84 (-2.39%), up 0.31% astatine $22.91.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed astatine $50.72 (+2.11%), up 2.09% astatine $51.78.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed astatine $46.55 (-6.90%), up 5% astatine $49.00.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily nett flow: -$60.7 million
Cumulative nett flows: $40.06 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.163 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily nett flow: $4.6 million
Cumulative nett flows: $3.16 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.784 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin Agora Dollar (AUSD), which debuted connected Solana astatine the extremity of January, has surpassed $100 cardinal successful marketplace capitalization.
The adjacent halt could beryllium $1 billion, according to Artemis.
While You Were Sleeping
Wintermute Looking to Expand successful U.S., Open Office successful New York (Bloomberg): At Consensus Hong Kong, Wintermute Trading CEO Evgeny Gaevoy announced plans to connection over-the-counter products successful the U.S. and expressed optimism astir forthcoming regulatory changes.
Crypto Has Moved Past FTX, but Still Needs 24/7 Risk Management, Brevan Howard's CIO Believes (CoinDesk): Three experts from accepted concern speaking astatine Consensus Hong Kong acknowledged crypto's technological advances since the FTX illness portion emphasizing the request for round-the-clock hazard management.
Private Jets, Political Cash Among $1B successful Sam Bankman-Fried's Forfeited Assets: Court (CoinDesk): As archetypal FTX bankruptcy repayments began, a U.S. national tribunal issued its last bid of forfeiture against the convicted CEO of the now-defunct exchange, seizing astir $1 cardinal successful assets.
Donald Trump’s Late-Night Posts Send Currency Traders to Asian Markets (Financial Times): The president's late-night and play announcements person disrupted regular trading patterns, prompting immoderate U.S. and European FX traders to hedge successful Asian markets.
U.K. Inflation Reaches 10-Month High, Complicating Bank of England’s Rate Path (The Wall Street Journal): The U.K.'s yearly ostentation complaint deed 3% successful January, up 0.5 percent points from December, making it tougher for the cardinal slope to chopped rates.
BOJ Policymaker Calls for More Rate Hikes, Warns of Inflation Risk (Reuters): Hajime Takata said persistent inflationary pressures and rising wages suggest the request for further interest-rate increases. Analysts spot the short-term involvement complaint jumping to 0.75% successful July.
In the Ether
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