Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Steady Before Jobs Data, Shrugs Off Eric Trump Endorsement
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The crypto market remains directionless, with bitcoin (BTC) languishing below $100,000 before the U.S. jobs report. It’s surprising prices have not yet crossed that threshold, especially after President Donald Trump’s son, Eric, encouraged the family-linked WLFI to invest in BTC in a post on X on Thursday.
Typically, such endorsements during a bull run lead to substantial gains. That that hasn’t materialized is a sign markets are no longer buoyed by talk alone and Trump needs to walk the walk. Early this week, the administration said it’s evaluating the feasibility of a strategic BTC reserve.
Another possibility is that caution ahead of nonfarm payrolls is capping the upside. If that’s the case, a breakout may occur once the data is out, especially if the figure prints weaker than estimated, potentially driving Treasury yields and the dollar index lower.
Crypto newsletter service LondonCryptoClub recommends keeping an eye on revisions in the previous figures. «Bloomberg Intelligence expecting some large downside revisions suggesting the Labour market not as strong in 2024 as first appeared We still think the market (and the Fed themselves) are massively under pricing the rate cuts that will need to come,» the newsletter service’s founders said on X.
At press time, Volmex’s one-day bitcoin implied volatility index stood at an annualized 51%, suggesting a daily price swing of 2.6%, or about $2,600. In other words, the figure could move the spot price by $2,600 in either direction. Notably, some traders are buying put options, bracing for potential downside volatility should the data come in strong.
In other news, the «Strategic Bitcoin Reserve» bill passed the House in the state of Utah and will now move to the Senate. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart reported that the U.S. SEC has acknowledged Grayscale’s Solana 19b-4 filing. And VanEck predicted a $500 price for SOL, more than double its current value of around $180.
Additionally, FOX reporter Eleanor Terrett shared that U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill and Digital Assets Subcommittee Chairman Bryan Steil have released a stablecoin regulation discussion draft, which proposes a two-year ban on stablecoins backed solely by self-issued digital assets and mandates a Treasury study on their risks.
And finally, Berachain’s BERA token, which debuted yesterday, has already recorded a staggering perpetual trading volume of $4.8 billion, with its price currently sitting at $7.60, a significant drop from yesterday’s peak of $14. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Feb. 13: Start of Kraken’s gradual delisting of the USDT, PYUSD, EURT, TUSD, UST stablecoins for EEA clients. The process ends March. 31.
Feb. 18, 10:00 a.m.: FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamas-based subsidiary of FTX, will start reimbursing creditors.
Macro
Feb. 7, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases January’s Employment Situation report.
Non Farm Payrolls Est. 170K vs. Prev. 256K
Unemployment Rate Est. 4.1% vs. Prev. 4.1%
Feb. 8, 8:30 p.m.: China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) releases January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 0.1%
PPI YoY Prev. -2.3%
Earnings
Feb. 10: Canaan (CAN), pre-market, $-0.08
Feb. 11: HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE), post-market, $-0.11
Feb. 11: Exodus Movement (EXOD), post-market, $0.14 (2 ests.)
Feb. 12: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, $0.04
Feb. 12: IREN (IREN), post-market, $-0.01
Feb. 12 (TBA): Metaplanet (TYO:3350)
Feb. 12: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.25
Feb. 12: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.41
Feb. 13: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.61
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
OsmosisDAO is discussing a change to the use of taker fees collected in OSMO to burn 50% of collected fees.
Threshold DAO is discussing the creation of a bond program to address its stablecoin’s liquidity challenges.
Sky DAO is voting on an an executive proposal to lower savings rates, sweep over 400K DAI in PauseProxy into the Surplus Buffer and allocate 3 million DAI for integration boost funding, among other things.
Yearn DAO is discussing the elimination of the Protocol Guardian Role over concerns surrounding its use to override previous democratic decisions and potential legal risks.
Feb. 7, 1 p.m.: Sweat Economy (SWEAT) to hold a token holders briefing discussing tokenomics, product roadmap and partnerships.
Feb. 8, 1:08 p.m.: A dYdX Foundation vote on granting the dYdX Operations subDAO signer market authority over the market map and eliminate revenue sharing for that function is on track to pass.
Feb. 10, 10:30 a.m.: OKX to hold a listings AMA with Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique and Head of Product Marketing Matthew Osofisan.
Unlocks
Feb. 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.17% of circulating supply worth $31.41 million.
Feb. 10: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.97% of circulating supply worth $68.99 million.
Feb. 12: Aethir (ATH) to unlock 10.21% of circulating supply worth $22.72 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 7: Avalon Labs (AVL) to be listed on Bybit.
Feb. 13: EthereumPoW (ETHW) and Polygon (MATIC) to no longer be supported at Deribit.
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.
Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)
Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.
Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong
Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong
Feb. 23 to March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver, Colorado)
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
BNB Chain speculators are gambling with a random TST token after an educational video showed its creation.
TST, or Test Token, was issued on the BNB Chain using the BEP-20 standard. It was not officially launched by Binance, but rather used in a token creation tutorial video by the BNB Chain team.
The price surged after the video was shared by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao on X because users took it to be an official Binance token even though Zhao no longer has a formal role at the company.
Zhao deleted his repost of the video later.
TST skyrocketed to a market cap of around $40 million shortly after Zhao’s post, reaching trading volumes of over $90 million at peak.
Derivatives Positioning
Perpetual funding rates for BERA are deeply negative, showcasing a strong bias for short positions. SOL, BNB, SHIB and BCH also have negative rates.
QCP Capital noted demand for BTC puts at $90K and $80K strikes expiring on Feb. 28 in a sign of persistent downside worries.
Block flows featured a BTC calendar spread betting on prices staying below $120K by the end of April, but eventually rising past $170K the end of December. Plus, an outright long in the $88K Feb expiry put crossed the tape.
ETH flows featured an outright long in the Feb. 14 expiry call at the $2,800 strike.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.24 % from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $97,686.16 (24hrs: -1.07%)
ETH is up 1.61% at $2,757.18 (24hrs: -1.75%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 1.99% to 3,215.42 (24hrs: -1.83%)
CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps to 3.06%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0052% (5.72% annualized) on Binance
DXY is up 0.08% at 107.78
Gold is up 0.37% at $2,866.78/oz
Silver is up 0.29% to $32.26/oz
Nikkei 225 closed down 0.72% at 38,787.02
Hang Seng closed up 1.15% at 21,133.54
FTSE is down 0.29% at 8,703.92
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.15% at 5,348.71
DJIA closed -0.28% to 44,747.63
S&P 500 closed +0.36% at 6,083.57
Nasdaq closed +0.51% at 19,791.99
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.14% at 25,534.49
S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.87% at 2,437.08
U.S. 10-year Treasury was unchanged at 4.44%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,104.00
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 21,855.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 21,853.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.62 (-0.48%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02823 (1.40%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 808 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $57.2
Total Fees: 5.17 BTC / $514,435
CME Futures Open Interest: 163,140 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 33.7 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.58%
Technical Analysis
Bitcoin seems to be crossing below the Ichimoku cloud used by traders to gauge momentum and trend strength.
Crosses below the indicator are taken to represent a bearish shift in trend.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $325.46 (-3.34%), up 0.63% at $327.50 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $270.37 (-1.73%), up 0.75% at $272.39 in pre-market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$27.07 (-2.13%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.80 (-1.35%), up 0.89% at $16.95 in pre-market.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.61 (-1.11%), up 0.69% at $11.69 in pre-market.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.53 (-1.42%), up 0.32% at $12.57 in pre-market.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.38 (+0.68%), up 6.84% at 11.09 in pre-market.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.76 (+1.34%), down 0.06% at $22.70 in pre-market.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $49.92 (-3.61%), up 2.14% at $50.99 in pre-market.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $48.01 (-6.52%), unchanged in pre-market.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$140.2 million
Cumulative net flows: $40.53 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.174 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $10.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.18 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.783 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The combined market capitalization of top two stablecoins, USDT and USDC, continues to grow and is fast nearing $200 billion.
The relentless rise represents an influx of money into the crypto market, hinting at bullish prospects.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin in a Mire, Gold Eyes 6th Straight Week of Gains as Jobs Data Looms (CoinDesk): With BTC struggling to find its footing amid declining Bitcoin network activity, today’s U.S. jobs data will give some clues on what the Fed may do next.
Solana’s SOL Could Hit $520 by 2025-End, VanEck Says (CoinDesk): Investment firm VanEck expects the SOL price to reach $520 by year-end. The forecast is based on growing demand for smart-contract platforms and an expanding U.S. M2 money supply.
Fed’s Waller Says Stablecoins Could Back Dollar’s Reserve Status (Bloomberg): While giving a speech in Washington, Fed Governor Christopher Waller expressed support for stablecoins as long as appropriate «regulatory rails» are in place to «make sure the money is there.»
Trump’s Memecoin Copycats Spark Fears for Investors (Financial Times): According to an FT analysis, since Donald Trump and his wife launched official memecoins, over 700 copycat tokens have flooded his official Solana wallet, prompting investor warnings.
India’s Central Bank Cuts Rates for First Time in Nearly 5 Years; Signals Less Restrictive Approach (Reuters): The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its repo rate by 25 basis points while maintaining a neutral policy stance in an attempt to stimulate a sluggish economy amid lower growth expectations.
Look to India, Japan for ‘Quality Alpha’ Amid Market Uncertainty, Investor Says (CNBC): According to alternative investment firm PAG, it’s hard to find alpha in China right now due to a lackluster economy and uncertainty over the impact of a trade war with the U.S.
In the Ether
On Friday, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was allegedly hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus group, which drained nearly $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) from the exchange.
Following the hack, Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and claiming to be a major ether (ETH) holder, wrote a post on X to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on whether he will “advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official.” Meanwhile, in an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that his team had also reached out to the Ethereum Foundation to see if it was something the network would consider, noting that such a decision should be based on what the network’s community wants.
Hayes’s post immediately provoked a fierce reaction from the Ethereum community, which was firm in its belief that it wouldn’t happen. Some even questioned whether the BitMEX founder was joking. CoinDesk reached out to Hayes over X to clarify his comments.
Ethereum members, like the core developer teams, are vastly against “rolling back” the network because it would override core elements of decentralization. If Buterin decided on his own that it would happen, then that would be seen as the end of Ethereum’s ethos, which heavily involves various developer teams and other community members when it comes to the health and state of the blockchain.
“Rolling back the chain would give ETH no purpose. What’s the point if you can just change rules,” said user @the_weso in a post on X.
Some outside the Ethereum community pointed to the 2016 DAO hack as an example when $60 million in ETH was stolen. The network went forward with a hard fork, splitting the old network into two, and the new chain continued on as Ethereum.
That hard fork was not a “rollback,” though; it was known as an “irregular state transition.” Ethereum technically can’t “roll back” the network because it relies on an account model, where accounts hold users’ ETH.
At the time of the hack, developers upgraded their nodes to a new client or software. Those who didn’t upgrade their nodes were still on the old chain, which became known as Ethereum Classic.
When the nodes upgraded to the new software, the stolen ETH could move from one Ethereum account address to the next.
“The ‘irregular state change’ that they implemented at the time of the DAO hard fork was this: they airlifted all the ETH in the DAO smart contracts out to a refund contract that would send you 1 ETH for every 100 DAO tokens you sent in,” wrote Laura Shin of Unchained in a post on X.
Major cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has seen total outflows of over $5.5 billion after it suffered a near $1.5 billion hack that saw hackers, believed to be from North Korea’s Lazarus Group, drain its ether cold wallet.
The total assets tracked on wallets associated with the exchange plunged from around $16.9 billion to $11.2 billion at the time of writing, according to data from DeFiLlama. The exchange is now looking to understand exactly what happened.
In an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that shortly after the incident, he called for “all hands on deck” to serve their clients with processing withdrawals and responding to inquiries about what was going on.
During the session, Zhou revealed that the security breach saw the hackers make off with roughly 70% of their clients’ ether, which meant that Bybit needed to quickly secure a loan to be able to process withdrawals. Yet, Zhou found that ether wasn’t the most withdrawn token, with most users instead withdrawing stablecoin from Bybit.
The exchange, Zhou noted, has reserves to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis deepened as, in response to the incident, Safe moved to temporarily shut down its smart wallet functionalities to “ensure absolute confidence in our platform’s security.”
Safe is a decentralized custody protocol providing smart contract wallets for digital asset management. Some exchanges integrated Safe, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and has multisig functionality to enhance the security of their cold wallets.
While the exchange had reserves to back up users’ withdrawals, $3 billion worth of USDT was in a Safe wallet that had just been shut down as the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.
On social media, Safe said that while it had «not found evidence that the official Safe frontend was compromised,» it was temporarily shutting down «certain functionalities» out of caution.
While Zhou and Bybit’s team were figuring out how to securely withdraw their $3 billion, withdrawals were mounting. Within two hours of the security breach, the exchange was facing requests to move over $100,000 off its platform, Zhou revealed.
Responding to the situation, Zhou told his security team to engage Safe to “find a better way to get this money out.” The team ended up developing new software with code “based on Etherscan” to verify the signatures “on a very manual level” to move the stablecoins back to their wallet and cover the withdrawal surge.
The exchange’s team had to remain up all night to be able to fulfill withdrawals, according to Zhou. As the exchange managed to move the $3 billion in stablecoin reserves, it was facing a bank run of “about 50%” of all the funds within the exchange.
Zhou said that since the incident, the exchange has moved a significant amount of funds off of Safe cold wallets and is now determining what system it will use to replace Safe.
Pushing to «Roll Back» Ethereum Was not Off the Table
Since the security breach, Bybit has engaged authorities. During the session, Zhou said that the Singaporean authorities took the issue “very seriously” and that he believes it has already been escalated with Interpol.
Blockchain analysis firms, including Chainalysis, were engaged. Zhou said, “As long as Bybit is there and continues to track [the stolen ether], I hope we can get these funds back.”
Notably, he revealed that pushing to «roll back» the Ethereum blockchain, which was suggested by some industry players on social media, including BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, had been on the table for some time if the community agreed with it.
“I had my team talking to Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there’s any recommendations they can offer to help. I do really thank all these guys on Twitter asking if there is a possibility to roll back the chain. I’m not sure what was the response on their side, but anything that would help we would try,” Zhou said.
When asked if «rolling back» the chain is even possible, Zhou responded he doesn’t know. “I’m not sure it’s a one-man decision based on the spirit of blockchain. It should be a work in process to see what the community wants,” he said.
It’s worth noting that a blockchain «rollback» refers to a state change that would allow for the funds to be recovered. While rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain is technically possible, such a state change on Ethereum would be more complex, given its smart contract interactions and state-based architecture.
Nevertheless, any state change would require consensus and likely lead to a contentious hard fork, drawing criticism from the community. This would likely split the Ethereum blockchain into two networks, each with its own supporters.
As for what exactly caused the hack to occur, is still unclear. Per Zhou, Bybit’s laptops have not been compromised. He said the movements of the transaction’s signers have been scrutinized but appear to have been routine.
“We know the cause is definitely around the Safe cold wallet. Whether it’s a problem with our laptops or on Safe’s side, we don’t know.,” Zhou added.
Uncategorized
Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025
A vast majority of Latin American cryptocurrency users—95%—plan to expand their holdings in 2025, according to a Binance Research survey of more than 10,000 investors in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
The findings show that 40.1% of respondents are expecting to buy more crypto within the next three months, 15.3% are looking to do so in the next six months, and 39.7% within 12 months. Only 4.9% have no plans to keep on investing this year.
Latin America led the world in crypto adoption in 2024, growing by 116%, according to research from payments firm Triple-A quoted in the report. The region now has 55 million cryptocurrency users, making up nearly 10% of total cryptocurrency users.
This rapid expansion has been fueled by rising asset prices, regulatory advancements, and new financial products like spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Brazil has just last week become the first country to approve a spot XRP ETF.
Market performance has also bolstered investor confidence. «Latin America is a rapidly expanding region for the crypto sector, and the results of this research reinforce what we have observed in our operations,” Binance’s regional VP for Latin America, Guilherme Nazar, said.
Binance’s research shows that half of those inquired already use cryptocurrencies for over a year, with most entering the space expecting significant returns and searching for financial freedom.
Portfolio diversification, privacy, and protecting their money were also quoted as motives to invest in the space.
Read more: How a $115M Crypto Fund With Big Ambitions Plans to Invest In Latin America
Ethereum ‘Roll Back’ Suggestion Has Sparked Criticism. Here’s Why It Won’t Happen
Bybit Sees Over $4 Billion ‘Bank Run’ After Crypto’s Biggest Hack
Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025
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