Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Inflation Is Hot, but Bitcoin Shines Through
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to climb the wall of worry, pushing above $97,000 despite hotter-than-expected U.S. consumer and producer price inflation reports in the past couple of days. That’s a surprise. With prices rising and the likelihood of a Fed rate cut receding, you’d expect risky investments like cryptocurrencies to pause, at the very least.
The buoyant behavior is possibly underpinned by signs that inflation is still seen as easing in coming months.
«Bitcoin could likely get some relief in the short-term judging by the high-frequency U.S. inflation indicator by truflation which suggests a significant decline in headline inflation over the coming months,» said Andre Dragosch, the head of European research at Bitwise. The Truflation U.S. Inflation Index currently shows 2.06%, indicating a potential decline.
Dragosch also noted the Federal Reserve’s cautious stance, suggesting the central bank is very aware of what happened in the 1970s, when three waves of inflation hit peaks of 6.2%, 12% and 15%.
«The Fed is afraid of the 1970s inflation scenario, which is why it rather takes a more cautious approach at the moment and is afraid of cutting rates too aggressively,» he said.
All that means the bitcoin bull market is far from over if historical trends hold out. Take a look at the 200-week moving average (a period of almost four years!). That’s currently around $44,200, below the previous market peak of $69,000 from November 2021. In the past, the average has risen toward the prior record, a move that implies further price growth is on the cards.
Also consider that short-term holders have accumulated 1.5 million bitcoin since September, showing continued demand from investors who tend to keep their BTC for less than 155 days.
On the public company front, Coinbase followed Robinhood with strong earnings and Gamestop is pondering a bitcoin investment, another potential catalyst for the market. Stay Alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
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.
Feb. 24: Ethereum developers start testing the code for the Pectra network upgrade on the Holesky testnet.
Macro
Feb. 14, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases January’s Retail Sales data.
Retail Sales MoM Est. -0.1% vs. Prev. 0.4%
Retail Sales YoY Prev. 3.9%
Feb. 18, 10:20 a.m.: San Francisco Fed President and CEO Mary C. Daly delivers a speech at the Conference for Community Bankers in Phoenix. Livestream link.
Feb. 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Fed releases minutes of the Jan. 28-29 FOMC Meeting.
Earnings
Feb. 18: CoinShares International (CS), pre-market
Feb. 18: Semler Scientific (SMLR), post-market
Feb. 20: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.88
Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), $-0.13
Token Events
Governance votes and calls
Aave DAO is discussing using GHO as a gas token across various networks. The framework proposes using the canonical network bridge to mint GHO directly as a gas token.
Umma DAO is voting on reducing UMA token emissions to optimize its economics. The proposal is to reduce emissions by 14% and assess the impact of the move.
Aavegotchi DAO is discussing migrating the protocol to Base over a need to join a chain with “strong ecosystem support.”
Arbitrum DAO is discussing upgrading to ArbOS 40 “Callisto,” which includes support for Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade.
Unlocks
Feb. 14: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 2.48% of circulating supply worth $15.19 million.
Feb. 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.25% of circulating supply worth $13.46 million.
Feb. 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.13% of circulating supply worth $46.2 million.
Feb. 16: Avalanche (AVAX) to unlock 0.4% of circulating supply worth $43.55 million.
Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.8 million.
Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $36.67 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 14: Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) to be listed on Coinbase, according to a post shared by the Pudgy Penguins account.
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 2 of 2: 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 Francisco Rodrigues
Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao’s dog has been the talk of the town. After revealing he had the pet and being bombarded with requests for information, he eventually gave in, knowing memecoins would be launched.
Zhao shared a picture of himself with the Belgian malinois named Broccoli in a lengthy post that inspired a slew memecoins. These tokens, trading under the ticker BROCCOLI, debuted both BNB Chain and Solana.
Some saw significant price rises right after their introduction to reach billion dollar-plus market caps as traders rushed in. As the hype faded, so did the prices. Fortunes were made and sold over Broccoli.
One trader, for example, spent less than $1,000 to create a token inspired by the dog and started selling the tokens just two minutes later. The trader managed to make $6.5 million on the launch, as CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reported.
The volatility affected the price of BNB itself, which is now 6.6% lower in the last 24 hours while bitcoin and ether are both up slightly. PancakeSwap’s CAKE token, which was up more than 70% on the week, is down 18%in the same period.
Elsewhere, the Trump-backed DeFi protocol WLFI has kept accumulating tokens, purchasing around $5 million worth of wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) and $1.4 million of Movement (MOVE).
Derivatives Positioning
XRP’s perpetual funding rates remain slightly negative, indicating a bias for shorts despite a 10% price surge. Should prices continue to rise, these shorts may throw in the towel, squaring off their bets and adding to an upward move in prices.
LTC, XLM and DOGE have seen net buying pressure in perpetual futures, according to the open interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta tracked by Velo Data.
BTC CME futures basis remains below ETH basis.
Block flows on Deribit featured outright longs in out-of-the-money calls and a bull call spread. In ETH, a call option at the $3,300 strike was filed in the March expiry, according to Amberdata.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 0.57% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $97,093.36 (24hrs: +0.96%)
ETH is up 1.39% at $2706.09 (24hrs: +1.13%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 3.70% to 3,324.03 (24hrs: +3.85%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bps to 3.06%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0035% (3.8632% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.32% at 106.97
Gold is up 1.17% at $2,960/oz
Silver is up 4.32% to $34.06/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -0.79% at 39,149.43
Hang Seng closed +3.69% at 22,620.33
FTSE is down 0.26% at 8,741.88
Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,501.78
DJIA closed Thursday +0.77% at 44,711.43
S&P 500 closed +1.04% at 6,115.07
Nasdaq closed +1.5% at 19,945.64
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.53% at 25,698.5
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.69% at 2,438.53
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was down 7 bps at 4.53%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.1% to 6,129.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 22,107
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down to 44,686
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 60.58 (-0.63%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02783 (0.47%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 818 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $54.1
Total Fees: 5.67 BTC / $546,770
CME Futures Open Interest: 167,750
BTC priced in gold: 33.0 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.37%
Technical Analysis
XRP has bounced off the Ichimoku cloud support, keeping the broader bullish outlook intact.
Prices seem to be headed toward the descending trendline resistance, which, if topped, will likely yield a move to record highs.
A potential move below the cloud would signal a bearish trend change.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $324.92 (-0.58%), up 0.6% at $327.03 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $298.11 (8.44%), down 1% at $295.12.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$28.37 (+5.58%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.91 (+4.13%), up 0.65% at $17.02
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.23 (+9.59%), up 0.1% at $12.24.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.54 (+3.72%), down 0.32% at $12.50.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.67 (+1.43%), up 0.66% at $10.74.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $23.28 (+2.42%), down 1.12% at $23.02.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $49.45 (+3.69%), up 1.86% at $50.37.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $50.00 (+2.35%), down 3.34% at $48.33.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$156.8 million
Cumulative net flows: $40.05 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.171 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $12.8 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.14 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.777 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The chart shows yields on the U.S. 10-year and two-year Treasury notes.
The 10-year yield has declined by 27 basis points in four weeks while the two-year yield has dropped 10 basis points.
The so-called bull flattening of the Treasury yield curve is a positive sign for risk assets, per some observers.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin Bull Market Is Far From Over, Suggests Historical BTC Trend Tied to 200-Week Average (CoinDesk): Historical trends suggest the bitcoin price has room to grow despite renewed U.S. inflation pressures. While the long-term average remains below previous highs, investor bets signal optimism for further gains.
China’s Gaorong Ventures Invests $30 Million in Crypto Unicorn (Bloomberg): HashKey Group, the operator of one of Hong Kong’s regulated crypto exchanges, received $30 million from a Chinese venture capital firm at a reported post-money valuation of nearly $1.5 billion.
Japanese Energy Firm Remixpoint Boosts Crypto Holdings More Than 8,000% in 9 Months (CoinDesk): Remixpoint (3825) disclosed it had accumulated over 125 BTC for its treasury and spent over 9 billion yen ($59 million) on crypto.
Vance Wields Threat of Sanctions, Military Action to Push Putin Into Ukraine Deal (The Wall Street Journal): U.S. Vice President Vance warned that military power could be used if Russia refuses to agree to a peace deal that guarantees Ukraine’s independence from Moscow.
India, US Agree to Resolve Trade and Tariff Rows After Trump-Modi Talks (Reuters): India promised to increase its oil, gas and military-equipment purchases from the U.S. as it prepares for trade talks that could ease tariff tensions.
Taiwan Pledges to Boost US Investment After Donald Trump’s Tariff Threat (Financial Times): Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te outlined measures to address the U.S. trade imbalance and pledged to ensure Taiwan remains indispensable in the global semiconductor supply chain.
In the Ether
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
The price of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, ether (ETH), has risen by more than 2.3% in the last 24 hours, while the broader CoinDesk 20 Index has risen by just 0.76% during the same period. Bitcoin is down around 0.3%.
The rise comes amid reports that Bybit, the cryptocurrency exchange that was hacked for $1.5 billion worth of ether and staked ether by North Korean hacking group Lazarus, has moved 100 million USDT into new addresses and moved half of that into addresses to purchase 36,900 ETH over-the-counter.
The funds, worth around $101 million, were then moved to addresses tagged as belonging to the cryptocurrency exchange, crypto journalist Colin Wu reported, citing, Arkham Intelligence data.
Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou reportedly said in an “ask me anything” session that the company’s assets are “far greater than $1.5 billion,” adding that “there is a cold wallet in safe with nearly 3 billion US dollars in USDT,” according to the same source.
Bybit’s hacker is now holdings an estimated 489,000 ETH valued at approximately $1.34 billion, around 0.4% of ether’s total supply, which makes it the 14th-largest holder of the cryptocurrency.
The addresses associated with the hacker are now closely monitored in the space and are blacklisted by major cryptocurrency exchanges.
“The stolen funds have already been marked, making it extremely difficult for the hacker to use them. Any attempt to transfer these funds to a major exchange would result in an immediate block,” StealthEX CEO Maria Carola told CoinDesk.
Since the hacker may not be able to use the funds in any way, some analysts are suggesting that the 0.4% of the ETH supply it holds is “essentially gone.”
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
Ether Price Spikes Further on Reports of Bybit Starting to Buy ETH
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