Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Traders Deleverage on Steady Fed Rate Outlook
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Crypto traders are deleveraging after Wednesday’s FOMC minutes showed the Fed is looking to hold rates steady until inflation improves and discussed pausing or slowing the balance sheet runoff.
Still, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped and the dollar weakened. Cryptocurrencies are higher, with the CoinDesk 20 Index up 1.4% and bitcoin 1.2% over 24 hours. The gains follow remarks by Czech National Bank Governor Ales Michl, who reiterated the case for bitcoin as a reserve asset, and President Donald Trump saying he’d ended “Joe Biden’s war on Bitcoin and crypto.”
Bitcoin traders are taking a wait-and-see approach as waning demand, a lack of blockchain activity and faltering liquidity inflows point to potential pullback to $86,000. It’s currently over $97,000. Their stance is visible not only in declining volatility, but also a significant drop in open interest.
Open interest on bitcoin futures contracts has fallen below $60 billion from nearly $70 billion in late January, Coinglass data shows. The decline comes amid what appears to be an unraveling of the memecoin craze as recent struggles, such as Argentina’s Libra debacle, dampened enthusiasm.
“Right now, the market is in a bit of a cooldown phase,” David Gogel, VP of strategy and operations at the dYdX Foundation, told CoinDesk. “Bitcoin’s been holding up, but after failing to break past $105k in January, we’ve seen capital inflows slow down and speculative assets like Solana and memecoins take a hit.”
That hit is visible in the aggregate open interest for futures contracts for SOL, the Solana blockchain’s native token. OI dropped from around $6 billion late last month to around $4.3 billion now, according to data from TheTie. Solana is one of the leading networks for memecoins.
“The market should stay attuned to broader macro-drivers and geopolitical developments that could trigger moves,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake O told CoinDesk. These geopolitical developments include rising tensions between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to a not-so-subtle public exchange.
Declining leverage and a shift away from riskier plays suggest the market may be entering a new phase. What that actually entails remains to be seen. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) becomes the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging platform Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.
Feb. 24: At epoch 115968, testing of Ethereum’s Pecta upgrade on the Holesky testnet starts.
Feb. 25, 9:00 a.m.: Ethereum Foundation research team Reddit AMA.
Feb. 27: Solana-based L2 Sonic SVM (SONIC) mainnet launch (“Mobius”).
Macro
Feb. 20, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada reports January’s producer price inflation 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 report 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 speech titled «Navigating Inflation Waves While Riding on the Phillips Curve» in Washington. Livestream link.
Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications reports January’s consumer price inflation 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 stop malicious actors from acquiring the tokens.
DYdX DAO is discussing increasing the limit on the maximum notional value of liquidations that can occur within a given block on the dYdX protocol to enhance the protocol’s speed and efficiency of risk reduction during liquidations.
Unlocks
Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.6 million.
Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.92% of circulating supply worth $34.23 million.
Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $81.07 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 20: Pi Network (PI) to be listed on MEXC, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, CoinW, DigiFinex and others.
Conferences:
CoinDesk’s Consensus to take place in Hong Kong on Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on 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 native token of the Pi Network, debuted at $1.70 and immediately rose to $2.00 before losing 50% of its value in the next two hours.
The network claims to have 60 million users. There are fewer than 1 million active wallets.
Based on a self-reported circulating supply figure of 6.3 billion, PI currently has a market cap of $7.8 billion.
The premise behind Pi Network is a blockchain that allows users to mine tokens on their smartphones. It captured a considerable amount of attention from retail traders and has drawn comparison to viral tokens from previous cycles like SafeMoon.
Token holders face the risk of a lack of liquidity. The token’s most liquid exchange is OKX, but 2% market depth — the amount of capital required to move the price by 2% in either direction — is between $33K and $60K. This means an order of say $100K would shift the market considerably to present volatile trading conditions.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC volatility on 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 rise from 49.43% to 74.72%, according to data published by Deribit.
Roughly $1.5 billion worth of BTC and ETH options are set to expire tomorrow, with almost $5 billion expiring in a week’s time.
The total open interest across all trading pairs on retail centralized exchanges has risen by 2.10% on the day 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% at $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 funding rate is at 0.0037% (4.0920% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.18% at 106.98
Gold is up 0.60% at $2,950,84/oz
Silver is up 1.52% to $33.19/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -1.24% at 38,678.04
Hang Seng closed -1.60% at 22,576.98
FTSE is down 0.24% at 8,690.90
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.62% at 5,494.99
DJIA closed Wednesday up 0.16% at 44,627.59
S&P 500 closed +0.24% at 6,144.15
Nasdaq closed +0.07% at 20,056.25
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed unchanged at 25,626.16
S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.35% at 2,463.68
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was down 1 bps at 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% at 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 in gold: 32.8 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.32%
Technical Analysis
Bitcoin has rebounded from the yearly open at $93,385, reclaiming the 100-day exponential moving average on the daily timeframe.
Over the last three deep sell-offs, the price has formed higher lows, indicating strong buyer interest at the current range lows.
However, the short-term 20-day and 50-day EMAs on the daily timeframe recently crossed for the first time since August 5th, signalling a need for caution in the near term.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $318.67 (-4.58%), up 2.01% at $325.08 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $258.67 (-2.25%), up 1.76% at $263.22
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$25.32 (-3.76%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.78 (-1.68%), up 1.33% at $15.99.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.56 (unchanged), up 1.04% at $11.68
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.02 (-2.99%), up 1.41% at $12.19
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.89 (-1.88%), up 1.81% at $10.07
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.78 (-0.26%), unchanged
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.22 (+2.96%), up 0.06% at $52.25
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $48.41 (+4.00%), unchanged
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$64.1 million
Cumulative net flows: $40.00 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.170 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $19 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.18 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.795 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Month-to-date data for top bridged netflows by network highlights a strong capital inflow into the Base network since the start of the month.
The layer-2 blockchain had a net inflow of $314 million, more than twice the amount of the second-placed Arbitrum, which has seen an inflow of $115 million.
Inflows to Solana slowed amid liquidity drains caused by multiple high-profile celebrity memecoin launches over the past month.
While You Were Sleeping
LIBRA Memecoin Fiasco Destroyed $251M in Investor Wealth, Research Shows (CoinDesk): Nansen’s on-chain analysts say 86% of people who traded the LIBRA token lost money, with the total loss of $251 million. The winners enjoyed a total profit 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 correct market imbalances with improved licensing, custody, token frameworks, derivatives trading and margin lending for professional investors.
MANTRA Launches Program for Real-World Asset Startups With Google Cloud Support (CoinDesk): Layer-1 blockchain MANTRA’s RWAccelerator backs startups working on tokenizing real-world assets by providing mentorship, with technical support and cloud credits coming from Google.
China Is Likely to Cut Its Benchmark Policy Rate Next Month (CNBC): China’s central bank held its key lending rates steady on Thursday, prompting expectations of a policy easing in March.
Bank of England’s Gold-Diggers Grapple With Trump-Fueled Frenzy (Bloomberg): Speculation over impending U.S. tariffs has forced a small BoE team to extract 12.5 kg gold bars as traders exploit gaps between London spot and U.S. futures prices.
‘Stagflation’ Fears Haunt U.S. Markets Despite Trump’s Pro-Growth Agenda (Reuters): While investors have largely remained bullish on U.S. stocks, some worry that the president’s new tariff measures might drive up prices and stifle economic growth.
In the Ether
The Bybit hacker, supposedly a North Korean entity, is now one of the world’s largest ether holders, which may have bullish implications for the cryptocurrency’s spot price.
According to data from Arkham Intelligence and Coinbase executive Connor Grogan, this malicious actor holds 489,000 ETH, valued at approximately $1.34 billion, constituting about 0.4% of ether’s total supply, making it the 14th-largest Ether holder globally. That puts the hacker ahead of the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum’s CEO Vitalik Buterin and Fidelity.
It’s important to note that the addresses linked to this entity are being closely monitored and backlisted by exchanges, which means the hacker will likely struggle to offload these coins in the market.
In simpler terms, the hacked ether supply is likely lost permanently. Furthermore, Bybit, which has reportedly secured a bridged loan from unnamed partners to cover nearly 80% of the ether lost in the Friday hack, will likely need to purchase coins in the market.
«As far as this supply is concerned, it’s essentially gone. No OTC desk or exchange will facilitate the movement of such a large amount. Meanwhile, Bybit is short 402k ETH. The bridge loan may cover immediate needs, but purchasing will still be necessary,» Vance Spencer, co-founder of the crypto VC firm Framework Ventures, said on X.
That probably explains why ether has bounced 2.6% to $2,730 from the overnight low of around $2,614. Funding rates in perpetual futures tied to ether remain positive, implying a bias for long positions, according to data source Coingecko.
Crypto exchange Bitget has transferred 40,000 ether (ETH), worth $105 million, to Bybit, offering crucial support to its industry counterpart in the wake of the over billion-dollar hack suffered by the exchange.
The funds transferred are from Bitget’s own reserves, not user deposits, which remain securely stored on the platform and can be cross checked through the proof of reserves, the exchange’s CEO, Gracy Chen, said in a note shared with CoinDesk, while assuring more support if needed.
«At Bitget we strongly believe in supporting the community and everyone contributing towards the growth of crypto,» Chen said.
A suspected North Korean entity drained approximately $1.4 billion in ether from Bybit on Friday. The hack prompted an unprecedented wave of withdrawal requests from users, with the exchange successfully processing 99% of them, effectively facing a significant market stress test.
Part of the stolen funds started to move during Asian afternoon hours on Saturday with over 5,000 ETH moved through eXch mixer — a service that masks wallet address — before being sent to bridge protocol ChainFlip where the stash was converted to bitcoin (BTC).
In an X post, ChainFlip said it couldn’t block fund movements as it was a fully decentralized applications that relies on automated smart contracts, but that it had «turned off some frontend services to stop the flow.»
On the other hand, Bitget has blacklisted wallets tied to the hacker that drained ether worth millions from Bybit on Friday.
«We will block any transactions flowing in from illicit addresses to the exchange once it has been monitored. Our team of security, and researchers, are currently tracking these activities,» Chen said.
Despite the hack, Bybit had managed to process over 350,000 withdrawal requests and has since restored normal withdrawal operations, per an X post.
Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and major ether (ETH) holder, asked Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to rollback the network in order to assist hacked exchange Bybit, which lost nearly $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) on Friday.
«@VitalikButerin will you advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official. My own view as a mega $ETH bag holder is $ETH stopped being money in 2016 after the DAO hack hardfork. If the community wanted to do it again, I would support it because we already voted no on immutability in 2016 [wh]y not do it again?» Hayes said on X.
Buterin was yet to reply as of time of publication.
The Bybit hack came into light on Friday when on-chain analyst ZachXBT noted suspicious outflows of over $1.4 billion from the exchange, with the attacker quickly swapping mETH and stETH for ether through a decentralized exchange.
The attacker then split 10,000 ETH to 39 different addresses and another 10,000 ETH to nine addresses, Gautham Santhosh, co-founder of Polynomial.fi, explained on X.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said that the hacker «took control of the specific ETH cold wallet and transferred all the ETH in the cold wallet to this unidentified address.» Zhou confirmed that the exchange «is solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered.»
One of the potential ways to address hacking is to roll back the blockchain. It involves reverting the blockchain to a state before the occurrence of a specific event, in this case, the hack. That way, malicious transactions resulting from the hack can be erased, effectively restoring lost or stolen funds. Implementing a rollback requires consensus from the network participants.
For instance, in 2016, the Ethereum network was rolled back using a hard fork to reverse a theft of $60 million in ether from The DAO (30% of all ETH in circulation back then). The hard fork split the chain into two – Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
In 2019, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao and his team considered pushing for a rollback on the Bitcoin network following a $40 million hack. However, the Bitcoin mining community criticized the idea of going back against the principle of decentralization and immutability, which are fundamental to blockchain technology.
Immutability is a security feature that prevents data from being changed after it’s added to the blockchain to make it trustworthy and tamper-proof. There are similar concerns regarding a potential Ethereum rollover.
«I wish we could roll back for the Bybit hack, I’m not against the idea. But the DAO hack was 15% of ETH with a clean recovery path. Today, a rollback would break bridges, stablecoins, L2s, RWAs and so much more. ETH ecosystem is just too interconnected now for a clean solution like 2016,» Santhosh said.
Sina 21st Capital explained that Ethereum is now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
«Ethereum is toast. They can roll back the chain and destroy what is left of the decentralization claim or allow North Korean baad actors to keep $1.4B of ETH and unleash an eternal internal battle. Either way, it is terrible,» Sina 21st Capital said on X.
Ether has dropped nearly 3% in 24 hours, but continues to trade rangebound between $2,600 and $2,800, CoinDesk data show.
Ether Supply Squeeze? Bybit Hacker Emerges as World’s 14th-Largest ETH Holder
Crypto Exchanges Start to Fill Bybit’s $1.4B Hole as Hackers Move Stolen Funds
Arthur Hayes Proposes Rolling Back Ethereum Network to Negate $1.4B Bybit Hack
-
Fashion4 месяца agoThese \’90s fashion trends are making a comeback in 2017
-
Entertainment4 месяца ago
The final 6 \’Game of Thrones\’ episodes might feel like a full season
-
Fashion4 месяца ago
According to Dior Couture, this taboo fashion accessory is back
-
Sports4 месяца ago
Phillies\’ Aaron Altherr makes mind-boggling barehanded play
-
Entertainment4 месяца ago
The old and New Edition cast comes together to perform
-
Entertainment4 месяца ago
Disney\’s live-action Aladdin finally finds its stars
-
Business4 месяца ago
Uber and Lyft are finally available in all of New York State
-
Sports4 месяца ago
Steph Curry finally got the contract he deserves from the Warriors