Ethena, developer of the synthetic stablecoin USDe, has raised $100 million to finance a similar token targeted at traditional financial (TradFi) institutions, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The funding round was completed in December, with Franklin Templeton and Fidelity Investments-affiliated F-Prime Capital among the backers, the report added, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Founder Guy Young said in a blog post in January that Ethena has plans to roll out iUSDe, a token tailored to regulated financial institutions.

Known as a synthetic stablecoin, USDe differs from other tokens in that it is not backed 1:1 by fiat assets. Instead, it maintains its peg by collateralizing stablecoins and taking futures positions with large open interest.

USDe’s market cap has jumped to around $6 billion this month, becoming the third largest stablecoin behind Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which are worth $142 billion and $57 billion respectively.

Some observers see USDe as a potential safe heaven during periods of greater volatility in the wider crypto market. Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer of Maelstrom, has said the digital asset fund has raised its exposure to USDe «to record levels.»

«We will be positioned with copious amounts of dry powder ready to buy the dip on Bitcoin,» Hayes, who is an investor in and an advisor to Ethena, added.

Ethena did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the $100 million funding round.

Read More: Peter Thiel-Backed Plasma Raises $20M to Develop Bitcoin-Based Network for Stablecoin

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin and ether, the two largest digital assets by market value, remain largely within their recent trading ranges two days after the $1.5 billion hack of Bybit, one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges.

Perpetual funding rates for both are positive, indicating a bias for long positions that benefit from price rises. Bitcoin options trading on Deribit show a bullish bias for call options across all time frames, while those tied to ether show a downside bias into March. The bias for ether puts, however, has been present since well before the hack.

Meanwhile, Volmex Finance’s 30-day bitcoin implied volatility index has dropped to an annualized 48.45%, the lowest since July, according to charting platform TradingView. Ether’s implied volatility has reversed the minor weekend spike from 67% to 70%.

The calm is a sign of market maturity, according to QCP Capital. «The price action underscores the growing maturity of the crypto landscape since the FTX collapse in 2022, particularly in the crypto credit market,» the trading firm said. «Every facet of crypto — from custodial and security solutions to corporate governance and transparency — has strengthened with each past crisis.»

Overall, the crypto community is reassured by Bybit’s ability to manage over $6 billion in withdrawals following the hack. Plus, the exchange has filled the gap in its ETH reserves.

According to Mena Theodorou, a co-founder of crypto exchange Coinstash, all eyes will be on Solana’s SOL as Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset management firms, has submitted a spot SOL ETF proposal to the SEC. In addition, 11.2 million SOL (2.3% of total supply) from the FTX estate are scheduled to be unlocked on March 1, which could breed market volatility. That has already boosted volume in SOL put options on Deribit.

President Donald Trump’s decision to audit gold reserves at Fort Knox in Kentucky has piqued interest in the crypto community. «While routine gold audits are rare, the timing is notable as Trump continues to push a pro-crypto narrative. If the gold supply turns out to be lower than expected, it could reinforce Bitcoin’s case as digital gold — and possibly even as a superior reserve asset,» Theodorou said in an email.

In traditional markets, the yen continues to gain ground against the U.S. dollar and growth-sensitive commodity currencies such as the Australian dollar, calling for caution on the part of the risk asset bulls. Stay alert

What to Watch

Crypto:

Feb. 24, 11:00 a.m.: Bugis network upgrade goes live on Enjin Relaychain mainnet.

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 AMA on Reddit.

Feb. 25: Pascal hard fork network upgrade goes live on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) testnet.

Feb. 25: Reactive Network mainnet launch, as well as the initial creation and distribution of the REACT token.

Macro

Feb. 24, 8:00 p.m.: Bank of Korea’s (BOK) Monetary Policy Committee announces its interest rate decision.

Base Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 3%

Feb. 25, 10:00 a.m.: The Conference Board (CB) releases February’s “Consumer Confidence Index” report.

CB Consumer Confidence Est. 102.1 vs. Prev. 104.1

Feb. 25, 1:00 p.m.: Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin delivers a speech titled “Inflation Then and Now.”

Feb. 25, 7:30 p.m.: The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases January’s «Monthly Consumer Price Index Indicator» report.

Monthly CPI Indicator Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.5%

Earnings

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

Feb. 26: NVIDIA (NVDA), post-market

Token Events

Governances votes & calls

Sky DAO is voting on key changes to the protocol including reducing the Smart Burn Engine’s protocol-owned liquidity to $15 million, and adjusting some parameters to enable immediate buybacks and direct all surplus to burning.

Ampleforth DAO is voting on reducing the Flash Mint fee to 0.5% and the Flash Redeem fee to 5% to increase the system’s adaptability.

DYdX DAO is discussing the establishment of a DYDX buyback program. Its initial step would allocate 25% of the dYdX’s protocol net revenue to buy back the token.

Unlocks

Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $35.43 million.

Mar. 1: DYdX to unlocked 1.14% of circulating supply worth $6.24 million.

Mar. 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 6.48% of circulating supply worth $13.7 million.

Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $81.07 million.

Mar. 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.63% of circulating supply worth $15.55 million.

Mar. 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.93% of circulating supply worth $69.89 million.

Token Listings

Feb. 25: Zoo (ZOO) to be listed on KuCoin.

Feb. 26: Moonwell (WELL) to be listed on Kraken.

Feb. 27: Venice (VVV) to be listed on Kraken.

Feb. 28: Worldcoin (WLD) to be listed on Kraken.

Conferences:

CoinDesk’s Consensus to take place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Day 2 of 8: 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 Francisco Rodrigues

The perpetrators of the near $1.5 billion hack of major crypto exchange Bybit have seemingly turned to popular Solana-based token launchpad Pump.fun to try to launder the stolen funds.

Pump.fun linked a token called “QinShinhuang (500000)” to the hacker(s) after a 60 SOL transfer and removed the token from its front end to prevent this type of activity.

Pump.fun could meanwhile soon launch its own automated market maker (AMM) in a blow to popular Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium, which benefited from being the platform graduating Pump.fun tokens traded on.

Derivatives Positioning

SOL put options expiring this Friday on Deribit trade at a premium of 7 vol points to calls, reflecting strong downside fears.

Ether options continue to show concerns of downside risk until the end of March, with subsequent expiries reflecting a bullish positioning. BTC options are biased bullish across time frames.

BTC block flows on Deribit featured calendar spreads and a bull call spread. ETH flows included long positions in calls at strikes of $2,850 and $2,900 and a short strangle in the April expiry.

Funding rates in perpetual futures linked to the OM token remain negative, a sign of traders taking protective bearish bets as the spot price continues to hit record highs.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 0.7% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $95,581.78 (24hrs: -0.6%)

ETH is up 1.91% at $2,679.37 (24hrs: -4.25%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 1.18% at 3,089.09 (24hrs: -3.52%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.99%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.51% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 106.6

Gold is unchanged at $2,936.29/oz

Silver is unchanged at $32.47/oz

Nikkei 225 closed on Friday +0.26% at 38,776.94

Hang Seng closed on Monday -0.58% at 23,341.61

FTSE is up 0.1% at 8,668.07

Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,477.70

DJIA closed Friday -1.69% at 43,428.02

S&P 500 closed -1.71% at 6,013.13

Nasdaq closed -2.2% at 19,524.01

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.44% at 25,147.03

S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.89% at 2,408.55

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.44%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.5% at 6,059.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.38% at 21,761.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.71% at 43,796.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.65% (24hrs: 1.3%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02801 (-4.4%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 789 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $56.53

Total Fees: 5.65 BTC / $540,507

CME Futures Open Interest: 169,620 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 32.3 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.17%

Technical Analysis

SOL’s daily chart shows the cryptocurrency has dropped below its criticial 200-day simple moving average.

Plus, it has confirmed a double top breakdown with a move below the horizontal (yellow) support line.

The bearish technical setup suggests scope for continued losses toward $120, which acted as a floor last year.

A move above the lower high of $209 printed early this month would invalidate the bearish technical outlook.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $299.69 (-7.48%), up 1.21% at $303.31 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $235.38 (-8.27%), up 2,02% at $240.20

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$22.76 (-11.27%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.66 (-8.09%), up 0.41% at $14.72

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.46 (-9.83%), up 2.77% at $10.75

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $10.80 (-8.78%), unchanged in pre-market

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.24 (-8.15%), up 0.97% at $9.34

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $20.52 (-8.76%)

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $47.74 (-8.61%), up 0.65% at $48.05

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.81 (+0.02%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$69.2 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.57 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.167 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$8.9 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.15 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.808 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Daily transactions and cumulative trading volumes on Solana’s decentralized exchanges have declined markedly since the debut of the TRUMP memecoin a month ago.

While You Were Sleeping

Bybit Closes ‘ETH Gap’ as Exchange Replenishes $1.4B Hole After Hack (CoinDesk): On-chain tracking service Lookonchain Bybit received around 446,870 ETH via loans, large deposits and ether purchases over the past two days.

Solana Whales Increase Engagement in Bearish Options Plays on Deribit Amid SOL Meltdown and Impending Unlock (CoinDesk): A steep drop in the SOL price, waning Solana network activity from memecoin declines and a massive token unlock on March 1 are fueling a surge in SOL put options on Deribit.

ECB Might Have to Lower Key Rate to Level That Stimulates Economy, Wunsch Says (Financial Times): National Bank of Belgium Governor Pierre Wunsch said that if eurozone inflation cools and demand remains weak, the ECB’s key rate could drop to 2% by mid-2025.

Options Traders Line Up Hedges Before Pivotal Nvidia Earnings (Bloomberg): Despite the S&P 500 rally, traders are bracing for volatility, with surging VIX call activity hinting at caution.

Trump Hands Russian Economy a Lifeline After Three Years of War (Reuters): Russia’s persistent inflation and 21% interest rate, driven by its war in Ukraine, are partly alleviated by Trump’s push for a peace deal that has boosted the ruble to six-month highs against the dollar.

Singapore Inflation Climbs at the Slowest Rate Since February 2021 (CNBC): In January, Singapore’s headline inflation rose 1.2% year-on-year, below the 2.15% increase expected by economists polled by Reuters. Core inflation fell to 0.8%.

In the Ether

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent narrow price range between $94,000 and $100,000 has perplexed many market participants.

While the largest cryptocurrency historically shows strong directional moves followed by months-long consolidations, known as stair-step price movements, this time feels different. Usually consolidations are followed by a breakout. In contrast, now the range has narrowed. In December it was $90,000-$110,000.

Attendees at last week’s Consensus Hong Kong shared the sentiment, with some prominent market makers and industry figures suggesting the rampant memecoin frenzy is a key reason behind the lull in BTC and the broader altcoin market, which feels similar to the lackluster price action from seven years ago.

«The market has been very saturated with memecoin launches, and crypto natives are kind of exhausted by this,» said Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of leading market maker Wintermute, at the conference.

Tokens such as President Donald Trump’s TRUMP and the LIBRA token promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei tend to draw liquidity from more established cryptocurrencies, Gaevoy said, with traders buying those at the expense of other coins.

Such stagnant BTC price behavior is reminiscent of September-October 2018, when the range tightened over successive weeks, ultimately settling between $6,000 and $6,400.

It’s not a totally parallel situation, though. That occurred during a bear market, following a steep decline from bitcoin’s then-record high of nearly $20,000, making the range play somewhat justifiable as investor confidence waned. This time around, BTC is only about 12% below its all-time high.

Presidential memecoins

Three days before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump debuted his official token, TRUMP, which reached a market cap of over $12 billion in just 48 hours. Its descent was equally fast, and the market cap had crashed to near $3 billion by early this month, data from Coingecko show.

What’s interesting is that the total crypto market capitalization remained largely unchanged at nearly $3.5 trillion during the boom-bust cycle. That’s a sign the memecoin did little to draw new capital to the market. In other words, the money simply migrated from BTC, Solana’s SOL and other coins.

Moreover, while some wallets that invested early made big money, around 800,000 lost a total of $2 billion by selling at a loss or holding as prices crashed, according to Chainalysis.

Something similar played out during the LIBRA fiasco early this month, which destroyed $251 million in investor money and became a net wealth-destroyer for the crypto market.

That’s probably why Abraxas Capital Management founder Fabio Frontini said memecoins should be banned. He was speaking during a rapid-fire round at the «Views from Wall Street to Crypto» session at Consensus.

Jason Atkins, chief commercial officer at Auros, said the fact that memecoins are sucking out liquidity from the other sectors of the market shows how fragile the liquidity pool is.

«It’s clear that adoption is still at an early stage,» Atkins said in an interview. «The number of participants remains relatively low, and the fact that one high-profile token launch can send shockwaves across the entire market shows how fragile the liquidity pool is. It’s a clear signal that the broader market lacks sufficient depth and stability.»

Those are key requirements for attracting more institutional interest, he said.

«Institutional investors are actively exploring how they can engage with this space. But they are cautious. They need to see a more mature, stable market that can handle larger volumes without getting disrupted by speculative, meme-driven activity.»

Bitcoin’s direction

Opinions were mixed on what happens next for the BTC price.

Several Consensus delegates said the meme frenzy and the uncanny stability in BTC is unhealthy. Such range plays often end with a downside move, they said. That’s what happened in 2018, when the consolidation ended with a sharp decline.

On the other hand, the memecoin saturation is overshadowing positive news on the regulatory front, Wintermute’s Gaevoy said.

«People don’t necessarily appreciate that we have a lot of positive news coming. For example, on the regulatory side, we have all forgotten how bad of an influence the SEC and even CFTC was for the last few years and now that overhang is completely gone. I don’t think it’s being properly priced, So I’m pretty optimistic,» Gaevoy said.

Altcoin ETFs?

The regulatory environment includes change of U.S. administration and exit of Gary Gensler from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of issuers have now filed SEC applications for spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to Solana’s SOL, XRP, dogecoin (DOGE) and litecoin (LTC).

To date, the regulator has approved only spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, assuming that the CME’s surveillance system for bitcoin and ether futures mitigates concerns about price manipulation. If CME futures are seen as a prerequisite to win approval for ETFs tied to digital assets, it’s worth noting the broader altcoins don’t have that privilege yet.

Gaevoy disagrees.

«It’s a relic from the previous SEC leadership. I would definitely not be surprised if Solana and other top 10 tokens excluding stablecoins are approved,» he said.