2 months ago
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Cryptocurrency prices are seeing a flimsy betterment from Tuesday's diminution with bitcoin (BTC) gaining 0.5% and the broader CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) advancing 0.8% successful the past 24 hours.
The driblet came earlier the Federal Reserve’s argumentation determination owed aboriginal today. Interest rates are forecast to stay unchanged astatine 4.25%-4.5%, truthful investors volition alternatively beryllium focused connected macro outlook with a potential extremity to quantitative tightening (QT) successful sight.
Since mid-2022, the Fed has been dilatory shrinking its equilibrium sheet, which inflated to $9 trillion to enactment the system during the COVID era. An earlier-than-expected extremity to quantitative tightening, which has truthful acold reduced the Fed’s equilibrium sheet to $6.7 trillion, could boost hazard assets similar bitcoin.
An extremity to QT would spot the Fed halt withdrawing liquidity from the market, perchance weakening the dollar and making crypto assets much attractive. Traders connected prediction marketplace Polymarket are fundamentally certain an extremity to QT volition beryllium announced earlier May.
Another boost for hazard assets came from the Bank of Japan (BOJ), which held its benchmark involvement complaint unchanged, contempt increasing ostentation successful the country. The determination keeps Japanese enslaved yields steady, limiting the attractiveness of these assets and attracting little superior to accepted markets. Still bitcoin failed to respond.
Bitcoin’s entreaty arsenic an alternate store of worth has been seeing increasing recognition. The fig of nationalist companies buying bitcoin has much than doubled to 80 from 33 successful conscionable 2 years, according to information from River. Strategy, the largest firm holder of BTC, has adjacent elaborate plans to merchantability $500 cardinal successful preferred banal to bargain more.
Yet, increasing tariffs threats person reignited inflationary risks arsenic economical maturation stagnates. The effect could beryllium stagflation, a concern that wouldn’t delight marketplace participants. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
March 20: Pascal hard fork web upgrade goes unrecorded connected the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) mainnet.
March 21, 1:00 p.m.: The SEC’s Crypto Task Force hosts a roundtable, open to the public, that volition absorption connected the explanation of a security.
March 24 (before marketplace open): Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) volition join the S&P SmallCap 600 index.
March 24, 11:00 a.m.: Bugis web upgrade goes unrecorded connected Enjin Matrixchain mainnet.
March 25: The Mimir upgrade goes unrecorded connected Chromia (CHR) mainnet.
Macro
March 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Reserve announces its interest-rate decision. The FOMC property league is likely to beryllium live-streamed 30 minutes later.
Fed Funds Interest Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
March 19, 3:00 p.m.: Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census releases GDP data.
Full Year GDP Growth (2024) Prev. -1.6%
GDP Growth Rate QoQ (Q4) Prev. 3.9%
GDP Growth Rate YoY(Q4) Est. 1.7% vs. Prev. -2.1%
March 19, 5:30 p.m.: The Central Bank of Brazil announces its interest-rate decision.
Selic Rate Est. 14.25% vs. Prev. 13.25%
March 20, 3:00 a.m.: The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics releases January employment data.
Unemployment Rate Est. 4.4% vs. Prev. 4.4%
March 20, 8:00 a.m.: The Bank of England announces its interest-rate decision.
Bank Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
March 20, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases employment information for the week ended March 15.
Initial Jobless Claims Est. 224K vs. Prev. 220K
Continuing Jobless Claims Est. 1890K vs. Prev. 1870K
March 20, 3:00 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census releases Q4 employment data.
Unemployment Rate Prev. 6.9%
March 20, 7:30 p.m.: Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications releases February user terms scale (CPI) data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 3.2%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.5%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 4%
Earnings (Estimates based connected FactSet data)
March 27: KULR Technology Group (KULR), post-market, $-0.02
March 28: Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY), pre-market, C$0.38
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Arbitrum DAO is voting connected registering the “Sky Custom Gateway contracts” successful the “Router contracts” to alteration users to span USDS and sUSDS done the authoritative Arbitrum Bridge UI.
Frax DAO is voting connected introducing the WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX) arsenic an on-chain reserve for Frax USD.
March 21, 11:30 a.m.: Flare to big an X Spaces session connected Flare 2.0.
Unlocks
March 21: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.39% of circulating proviso worthy $14.16 million.
March 23: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating proviso worthy $146.8 million.
March 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.93% of its circulating proviso worthy $28.22 million.
April 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.03% of its circulating proviso worthy $150.22 million.
April 3: Wormhole (W) to unlock 47.7% of its circulating proviso worthy $118.05 million.
April 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.59% of its circulating proviso worthy $12.3 million.
Token Listings
March 19: Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) and DuckChain (DUCK) to beryllium listed connected Kraken.
March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.
Conferences
CoinDesk's Consensus is taking spot in Toronto connected May 14-16. Use codification DAYBOOK and prevention 15% connected passes.
Day 2 of 3: Digital Asset Summit 2025 (New York)
Day 2 of 3: Fintech Americas Miami 2025
Day 1 of 2: Next Block Expo (Warsaw)
March 24-26: Merge Buenos Aires
March 25-26: PAY360 2025 (London)
March 25-27: Mining Disrupt (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
March 26: Crypto Assets Conference (Frankfurt)
March 26: DC Blockchain Summit 2025 (Washington)
March 26-28: Real World Crypto Symposium 2025 (Sofia, Bulgaria)
March 27: Building Blocks (Tel Aviv)
March 27: Digital Euro Conference 2025 (Frankfurt)
March 27: WIKI Finance EXPO Hong Kong 2025
March 27-28: Money Motion 2025 (Zagreb, Croatia)
March 28: Solana APEX (Cape Town)
April 2-3: Southeast Asia Blockchain Week 2025 Main Conference (Bangkok)
April 3-6: BitBlockBoom (Dallas)
April 6-9: Hong Kong Web3 Festival
April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week
April 15-16: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
More than 590 caller tokens were issued connected the Tron blockchain-based SunPump today, marking the highest issuance successful 4 months and spurring Tron laminitis Justin Sun to station "tron meme szn" connected X.
Sun aboriginal posted that trading fees volition beryllium "subsidized," adding that each memecoin would beryllium "back connected Tron."
SunPump allows instant trading without archetypal liquidity seeding, fueling the frenzy. It has pocketed $5.74 cardinal successful fees successful the past 24 hours, reaching levels not seen since August.
Derivatives Positioning
Bitcoin futures unfastened involvement (OI) connected centralized exchanges has risen supra $55 billion, up 32% since Feb. 23, with OI successful SOL and ETH futures remaining mostly stagnant. The marketplace is intelligibly biased toward the starring cryptocurrency.
Positioning successful the BTC CME futures, however, remains light, adjacent February lows.
NEAR, TON and TRX are starring maturation successful perpetual futures unfastened involvement successful the past 24 hours. NEAR stands retired with antagonistic cumulative measurement delta, pointing to nett selling.
Deribit-listed BTC and ETH options proceed to amusement bias for abbreviated and near-dated protective puts.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.84% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday astatine $83,576.60 (24hrs: +0.88%)
ETH is up 2.04% astatine $1,945.99 (24hrs: +2.6%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 2.2% astatine 2,624.87 (24hrs: +1.6%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged astatine 2.96%
BTC backing complaint is astatine 0.0071% (7.74% annualized) connected Binance
DXY is down 0.32% astatine 103.57
Gold is unchanged astatine $3,030.30/oz
Silver is down 1.24% astatine $33.70/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -0.25% astatine 37,751.88
Hang Seng closed +0.12% astatine 24,771.14
FTSE is down 0.15% astatine 8,691.31
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.15% astatine 5,493.38
DJIA closed connected Tuesday +0.62% astatine 41,581.31
S&P 500 closed -1.07% astatine 5,614.66
Nasdaq closed -1.71% astatine 17,504.12
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.32% astatine 24,706.07
S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged astatine 2,476.87
U.S. 10-year Treasury complaint is unchanged astatine 4.29%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.23% astatine 5,682.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.32% astatine 19,764.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.16% astatine 42,004.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.62 (0.27%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02329 (-0.30%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 773 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $47.30
Total Fees: 5.13 BTC / $428,677
CME Futures Open Interest: 154,060 BTC
BTC priced successful gold: 27.2 oz
BTC vs golden marketplace cap: 7.71%
Technical Analysis
BTC's caller bounce toward the 200-day elemental moving mean (SMA) is accompanied by a declining inclination successful regular trading volumes.
The discrepancy raises a question people connected the sustainability of the recovery.
Plus, the 50-day SMA has crossed beneath the 100-day SMA, a bearish awesome that the way of slightest absorption is to the downside.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed connected Tuesday astatine $283.19 (-3.77%), up 1.95% astatine $288.47 successful pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed astatine $181.14 (-4.14%), up 1.36% astatine $183.60
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed astatine C$17.09 (-1.5%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed astatine $12.07 (-6.94%), up 1.74% astatine $12.28
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed astatine $7.40 (-4.64%), up 1.22% astatine $7.49
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed astatine $8.02 (-8.45%)
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed astatine $7.59 (-6.53%), up 1.98% astatine $7.74
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed astatine $14.25 (-7.29%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed astatine $35.49 (-1.5%), up 9.33% astatine $38.80
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed astatine $30.26 (-6.46%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily nett flow: $209.1 million
Cumulative nett flows: $35.87 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1,116 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily nett flow: -$52.8 million
Cumulative nett flows: $2.47 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.472 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Programmable blockchain Solana leads different platforms with the highest fig of regular progressive addresses and regular transactions contempt a slowdown successful the memecoin trading frenzy.
The information supports the bull lawsuit for the blockchain's SOL token versus autochthonal coins of different smart-contract blockchains.
While You Were Sleeping
Investors Pump $22B Into Short-Term U.S. Debt to Ride Out Market ‘Storm’ (Financial Times): Investors, wary of Donald Trump’s economical policies, are moving into haven assets, with short-term Treasury funds seeing $21.7 cardinal successful nett inflows from aboriginal January to March 14.
Bank of Japan Keeps Interest Rates Steady, Warns of Trump Tariff Risks (Reuters): The cardinal slope held its benchmark complaint astatine 0.5%, arsenic economists forecast. Governor Kazuo Ueda indicated that aboriginal complaint argumentation is apt to bespeak the effects of tariffs imposed by the U.S.
Drone Strike Sets Fire to Russia Oil Depot Near Damaged CPC Link (Bloomberg): Despite a connection discussed Tuesday by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to halt attacks connected vigor infrastructure, a cardinal Russian lipid depot was struck by a Ukrainian drone aboriginal Wednesday.
Raydium’s RAY Jumps 13% arsenic DEX Reveals Own Token Issuance Platform (CoinDesk): The Solana-powered decentralized speech Raydium is reportedly readying to motorboat a level named LaunchLab to summation gross and grow its idiosyncratic base.
Untangled Finance Brings Moody's Credit Scores On-Chain (CoinDesk): The impervious of conception system, powered by Polygon's Amoy testnet, uses zero-knowledge impervious exertion to securely publish, update and retreat recognition ratings on-chain, protecting proprietary information.
North Dakota Senate Passes Crypto ATM Bill to Create Licensing Regime (CoinDesk): House Bill 1447 requires crypto ATM operators to contented fraud warnings, get wealth transmitter licenses, usage blockchain analytics bundle for fraud detection, taxable quarterly reports and name a compliance officer.
In the Ether
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