Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Inflation Data May Shake Out Bitcoin’s Doldrums as Demand for BTC Picks Up
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The U.S. inflation report due later today might shift bitcoin (BTC) out of the doldrums that have mired it this week.
In recent years, the January figure has tended to show significant price hikes. Last year, for example, the month’s data put an end to a series of lower readings, repeating a pattern also seen in 2023. That’s because businesses often evaluate their costs and raise prices at the start of the year, as the Wall Street Journal points out.
A higher-than-expected inflation report could suggest “monetary policy has more work to do” Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said in a speech last week. The Federal Reserve has already indicated it isn’t rushing to adjust interest rates after 100 basis points of reductions last year.
Also playing into the consideration are the Trump administration’s tariffs, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston pointing to a potential rise as high as 0.8% to core PCE, the inflation measure the Fed focuses on. Still, in 2018 and 2019 tariffs had negligible effects.
On the other hand, a soft inflation report could be beneficial for risks assets including bitcoin. A lower-than-expected figure will probably raise interest-rate cut expectations, potentially weakening the U.S. dollar index and lowering Treasury yields, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole has reported.
Meanwhile, demand for the largest cryptocurrency holds strong. Just this week, Japanese mobile-game studio Gumi revealed plans to accumulate around $6.6 million worth of BTC, while KULR Technology Group increased its crypto holdings to 610.3 bitcoin.
Similarly, Goldman Sachs’ 13F filing shows the banking giant significantly increased its exposure to spot bitcoin and ether ETFs in the fourth quarter. And don’t forget Strategy’s near-weekly bitcoin purchases.
Bitcoin’s Coinbase premium, which measures the difference between BTC’s price on the U.S. exchange and Binance, recently turned negative, suggesting U.S. traders are cautious about the upcoming inflation report.
The caution comes amid growing headwinds for the crypto market, which may have reached the top of its cycle. Research firm BCA Research has recently shared a note with clients suggesting the record ETF inflows and the memecoin craze are warning signals.
Warning signals are present elsewhere, with a recent JPMorgan report pointing out that crypto ecosystem growth slowed last month, while total trading volumes dropped 24%. Activity is nevertheless ahead of where it was before the U.S. elections. 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. 13: Story (IP) mainnet launch.
Feb. 14: Dynamic TAO (DTAO) network upgrade goes live on the Bittensor (TAO) mainnet.
Feb. 14, 2:30 a.m.: Qtum (QTUM) hard fork network upgrade.
Feb. 18, 10:00 a.m.: FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamas-based subsidiary of FTX, starts reimbursing creditors.
Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) becomes the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging platform Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.
Macro
Feb. 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.2%
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.1% vs Prev. 3.2%
Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 2.9%
Feb. 12, 10:00 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome Powell presents his semi-annual report to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. Livestream link.
Feb. 13, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases January’’s Producer Price Index (PPI) report.
Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0%
Core PPI YoY Est. 3.3% vs. Prev. 3.5%
PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.2%
PPI YoY Prev. 3.3%
Feb. 13, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims report for the week ended Feb. 8.
Initial Jobless Claims Est. 216K vs. Prev. 219K
Earnings
Feb. 12: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, $0.05
Feb. 12: IREN (IREN), post-market, $-0.01
Feb. 12: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.25
Feb. 12: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.41
Feb. 13: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.89
Feb. 14: Remixpoint (TYO: 3825)
Feb. 18: CoinShares International (STO: CS), pre-market
Feb. 18: Semler Scientific (SMLR), post-market
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Morpho DAO is discussing a 25% reduction in MORPHO rewards on both Ethereum and Base after another reduction took effect on Jan. 30.
DYdX DAO is voting on the dYdX Treasury subDAO taking control over the stDYDX within the protocol’s Community Treasury and any tokens accrued through auto compounding staking rewards.
Curve DAO is voting on increasing 3pool’s amplification coefficient to 8,000 over 30 days and raise admin fees to 100%. To optimize liquidity, as part of an experiment, 3pool will have higher fees while Strategic Reserves will offer lower fees.
Feb. 12 2 p.m. : Render (RENDER) to host an AI Scout Discord AMA session.
Unlocks
Feb. 12: Aethir (ATH) to unlock 10.21% of circulating supply worth $23.80 million.
Feb. 14: The Sandbox (SAND) to unlock 8.4% of circulating supply worth $80.2 million.
Feb. 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.13% of circulating supply worth $42.93 million.
Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.8 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 12: Avalon (AVL) to be listed on Bybit.
Feb. 12: Game7 (G7) to be listed on Bybit, Gate.io, HashKey, MEXC, XT, and KuCoin.
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. 12-13: Frankfurt Digital Finance (FDF) 2025
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. 24: RWA London Summit 2025
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
The Central African Republic’s CAR token is down 95% from Monday’s peak prices, with a market capitalization now around $40 million.
CAR was issued late Sunday and promoted by the republic’s President
Faustin-Archange Touadéra as an asset that could help fund public facilities in the impoverished nation.
Touadéra claimed proceeds from CAR token are being used to rebuild and furnish a high school, whose details are not yet public.
Derivatives Positioning
Following Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks hinting at a potential delay in quantitative easing until interest rates approach zero, market sentiment turned more cautious, leading to a sharp decline in open interest across altcoins.
Rocket Pool, Venice Token and TST experienced the most significant drops, with open interest plunging 44%, 32%, and 30%, respectively, over the past 24 hours.
On the other hand, Binance ecosystem tokens gained momentum, with BNX the standout performer. Open interest in BNX surged 57% to $166 million within a day, while its price jumped 18% to $0.868.
Market Movements:
BTC is down 0.4% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday to $96,029.62 (24hrs: -1.97%)
ETH is down 0.17% at $2,619.27 (24hrs: -2.87%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 0.66% to 3,178.54 (24hrs: -2.74%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 5 bps to 3.1%
BTC funding rate is at 0.01% (10.95% annualized) on Binance
DXY is unchanged at 107.99
Gold is down 0.15% at $2908.1/oz
Silver is down 0.22% to $32.16/oz
Nikkei 225 closed up 0.42% at 38,963.7
Hang Seng closed +2.64% at 21,857.92
FTSE is unchanged at 8,781.91
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.1% to 5,396.36
DJIA closed Tuesday +0.28% at 44,593.65
S&P 500 closed unchanged at 6,068.5
Nasdaq closed -0.36% at 19,643.86
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.11% at 25,631.8
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.65% at 2,444.58
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was up 1 bps at 4.54%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.16% to 6,082.5
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 21,777
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.21% at 44,616
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.32% (+0.06%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02728 (+0.33%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 800 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $53.56
Total Fees: 5.25 BTC / $505,060
CME Futures Open Interest: 167,470 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 33.1 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.4%
Technical Analysis
Dogecoin reaches a critical point support and resistance at 25 cents, with prices coiling around that level since Feb.3.
Traders may watch DOGE’s Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator, which tracks the relative changes in prices across specific time periods.
The indicator is trending upward with net buying volumes since Feb. 3, indicative of a rally if the MACD line crosses above zero.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $319.46 (-4.53%), up 0.82% at $322.30 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $266.90 (-4.75%), up 0.88% at $269.25 in pre-market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.54 (-2.57%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.02 (-4.42%), up 1% at $16.18 in pre-market.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.14 (-4.21%), up 0.81% at $11.23 in pre-market.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.26 (-4.37%), up 0.24% at $12.29 in pre-market.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.28 (-8.05%), up 0.39% at $10.32 in pre-market.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.34 (-4.94%), up 0.12% at $22.46 in pre-market.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $46.98 (-5.3%), unchanged in pre-market.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $49.16 (-3.95%), unchanged in pre-market.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$56.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $40.46 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.174 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $12.6 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.17 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.785 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Ethereum has dropped down to 17th in terms of weekly revenues across all blockchains and applications, with a relatively small $7 million pocketed by network validators.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin May See Gains from Soft U.S. CPI, Major Risk-On Surge in BTC Appears Unlikely (CoinDesk): Bitcoin and other risk assets may get a boost if today’s CPI report shows soft inflation, but Trump’s tariffs are likely to curb further rate cuts and put the brakes on a sustained rally.
Trump to Tap Former CFTC Commissioner, a16z Policy Head Brian Quintenz for CFTC Head (CoinDesk): Brian Quintenz, a former commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and a crypto advocate, has reportedly been chosen by President Trump to be the agency’s chairman.
Crypto Custody Firm BitGo Said to Weigh IPO as Soon as This Year (Bloomberg): Crypto custodian BitGo is considering an IPO for the second half of 2025, joining firms such as Gemini and Kraken, which are also expected to go public this year.
Why Today’s Inflation Report Is Especially Important (The Wall Street Journal): January’s U.S. inflation data — with the CPI released today, PPI tomorrow, and PCE on Feb. 28 — is important for predicting the Fed’s monetary policy because businesses typically raise prices at the start of the year.
Stocks Steady; Sanguine Powell Knocks Bonds and Gold (Reuters): Fed Chari Powell’s Senate testimony on Tuesday, downplaying rate-cut urgency unless inflation falls or job market weakens, boosted Treasury yields and the dollar, while sending oil and gold prices lower.
China’s Tech Stocks Enter Bull Market After DeepSeek Breakthrough (Financial Times): Chinese tech stocks have surged 20% in one month after DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough revived investor confidence in internet companies, helping the Hang Seng Tech index to outpace the Nasdaq 100.
In the Ether
UPDATE (Feb. 12, 12:03 UTC): Adds Derivatives Positioning section.
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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