By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The crypto market is a sea of red, with bitcoin trading at three-month lows under $88,000 and the CoinDesk 20 Index down more than 10% in 24 hours. There are several catalysts for the swoon, including risk-off sentiment in traditional markets and influence from memecoins, especially the recent trading in TRUMP and LIBRA.
As we discussed Monday, market makers attending the Consensus Hong Kong conference last week were worried the memecoin frenzy had sucked liquidity from the productive crypto sub-sectors, leaving the broad market vulnerable.
Another reason is President Donald Trump’s inaction. Although he made significant promises in the lead-up to the elections, concrete action has been scarce. The anticipated strategic BTC reserve remains absent, and even state-level reserves are proving challenging to implement.
“The industry is still waiting for this to manifest in a tangible way in the form of measures such as a mooted Bitcoin Strategic Reserve,” Petr Kozyakov, co-founder and CEO at Mercuryo told CoinDesk. “In the meantime, sentiment has been hit hard by the biggest ever hack at the Bybit exchange, leaking 401,000 ETH, and a memecoin sector plagued with high-profile pump and dump schemes.”
Lastly, renewed concerns about the U.S. economy are zapping demand for riskier assets.
“There is also some concern about the slowdown in U.S. growth since last week’s U.S. Services PMI release, the lowest in 22 months and consistent with GDP growth tracking at 0.6% only,” Nansen’s principal research analyst Aurelie Barthere said. “Our Nansen Risk Barometer also just turned Risk-off from Neutral today.”
Together, they sent BTC diving out of its two-month-long range play between $90,000 and $110,000. Technical analysis theory suggests it could drop to $70,000, though the maximum open interest in BTC put options listed on Deribit sits at the $80,000 strike, indicating that this level could provide some support.
What could stabilize prices? Perhaps an announcement from Trump regarding a strategic reserve or a sharp reversal by the Nasdaq 100. However, that index has fallen below its 50-day SMA, while the yen, a risk-aversion signal, continues to strengthen against G7 currencies, including the dollar.
The next major catalysts for risk assets are Nvidia’s earnings on Feb. 26 and core PCE inflation on Feb. 28. Stay alert!
What to Watch
- Crypto:
- Macro
- Feb. 25, 10:00 a.m.: The Conference Board (CB) releases February’s Consumer Confidence Index.
- CB Consumer Confidence Est. 102.5 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 Consumer Price Index.
- Monthly CPI Indicator Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.5%
- Feb. 26, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases January’s New Residential Sales report.
- New Home Sales Est. 0.68M vs. Prev. 0.698M
- New Home Sales MoM Prev. 3.6%
- Feb. 26-27: 2025’s first G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting (Cape Town).
- Feb. 25, 10:00 a.m.: The Conference Board (CB) releases February’s Consumer Confidence Index.
- Earnings
Token Events
- Governances votes & calls
- 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 token.
- Frax DAO is discussing upgrading the protocol by renaming FXS to FRAX, making it the gas token on Fraxtal, implementing the Frax North Star Hardfork, and introducing a Tail Emission Plan with gradually decreasing emissions, among other enhancements.
- Unlocks
- Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $30.21 million.
- Mar. 1: DYdX to unlock 1.14% of circulating supply worth $5.36 million.
- Mar. 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 6.48% of circulating supply worth $11.86 million.
- Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $61.32 million.
- Mar. 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlocked 0.63% of circulating supply worth $14.02 million.
- Mar. 8: Berachain (BERA) to unlock 9.28% of circulating supply worth $61.6 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. 25: Ethena (ENA) to be listed on Bithumb.
- Feb. 26: Moonwell (WELL) to be listed on Kraken.
- Feb. 27: Venice token (VVV) to be listed on Kraken.
- Feb. 28: Worldcoin (WLD) to be listed on Kraken.
Conferences:
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
- A token tied to a fake Sam Bankman-Fried account became the rug-pull of the day.
- The scam started with the account “Comune Guardiagrele,” a small Italian city with a verified grey checkmark indicating it’s an official government or organization account, based on web results on identity verification.
- Scammers probably hijacked or bought the account and changed the name to “@SBF_Doge” mimicking Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the disgraced crypto mogul jailed for the FTX fraud.
- The account then launched a memecoin, likely tricking unsuspecting traders or bots into thinking it was legitimate due to the verification badge.
- The memecoin’s market capitalization rose to $10 million before its creators pulled liquidity, crashing it to a $100,000 capitalization and pocketing fees and proceeds gained from the sale.
Derivatives Positioning
- The top 25 cryptocurrencies by market value, excluding stablecoins, have registered price losses in the past 24 hours. At the same time, most have seen increases in open interest in perpetual futures and negative cumulative volume deltas, indicating an influx of bearish short positions. Perhaps there is more pain ahead.
- On Deribit, XRP’s February expiry puts trade at a 8 vol premium relative to calls. Talk about sentiment being notably bearish.
- BTC, ETH options show downside concerns till mid-to-late March, with subsequent expiries retaining the bullish call bias.
Market Movements:
- BTC is down 6.23% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $88,118.16 (24hrs: -7.7%)
- ETH is down 9.4% at $2,393.03 (24hrs: -10.6%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 9.19% at 2,750.01 (24hrs: -11.61%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.99%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0008% (0.84% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is unchanged at 106.7
- Gold is down 0.28% at $2,937.90/oz
- Silver is down 0.43% at $32.14/oz
- Nikkei 225 closed -1.39% at 38,237.79
- Hang Seng closed -1.32% at 23,034.02
- FTSE is up 0.34% at 8,688.48
- Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,449.69
- DJIA closed on Monday unchanged at 43,461.21
- S&P 500 closed -0.5% at 5,983.25
- Nasdaq closed -1.21% at 19,286.93
- S&P/TSX Composite Index closed unchanged at 25,151.26
- S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.92% at 2,386.34
- U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 6 bps at 4.35%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.78% at 5,981.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.53% at 21,306.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.13% at 43,479.00
Bitcoin Stats:
- BTC Dominance: 61.81% (-0.15%)
- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02720 (-0.95%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 745 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $56.8
- Total Fees: 7.5 BTC / $1.3 million
- CME Futures Open Interest: 166,510 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 29.7 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 8.42%
Technical Analysis
- BTC’s daily chart shows the cryptocurrency has triggered a double top bearish reversal pattern.
- The shift in trend supports the case for a protracted weakness to the 200-day simple moving average, presently stationed below $82,000.
Crypto Equities
- MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $282.76 (-5.65%), down 6.35% at $264.81 in pre-market
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $227.07 (-3.53%), down 5.6% at $214.14
- Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$21.80 (-4.22%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.25 (-4.68%), down 5.76% at $13.09
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $9.99 (-4.49%), down 5.01% at $9.49
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $9.86 (-8.7%), down 5.58% at $9.31
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.90 (-3.78%), down 5.39% at $8.42
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $19.20 (-6.43%), down 5.21% at $18.20
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $44.38 (-7.04%), down 1.8% at $43.58
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.16 (-13.91%), unchanged in pre-market
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
- Daily net flow: -$516.4 million
- Cumulative net flows: $39.05 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1,105 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$78 million
- Cumulative net flows: $3.07 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 3.331 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
- Raydium registered a cumulative trading volume of $1.9 billion on Monday, the lowest since Nov. 29, according to Artemis.
- The slowdown partly explains the recent decline the value of the RAY token and Solana’s SOL token.
While You Were Sleeping
- Bitcoin Slides Below $89K to 3-Month Low as Nasdaq Futures Dip, Yen Sparks Risk-Off Fears (CoinDesk): Bitcoin fell below $89,000 as Nasdaq futures signaled further tech losses and a strong yen raised concerns of risk aversion similar to August 2024.
- U.S. Bitcoin ETFs Post Year’s 2nd-Biggest Outflows as Basis Trade Drops Below 5% (CoinDesk): U.S.-listed spot BTC ETFs saw $516 million in outflows on Monday and the bitcoin CME annualized basis fell to 4%, the lowest since the ETFs began trading in January 2024.
- USDe Issuer Ethena Labs Integrates Chaos Labs’ Edge Proof of Reserves Oracles to Strengthen Risk Management (CoinDesk): Ethena Labs has enhanced USDe’s risk management by adopting independent data oracles from Chaos Labs.
- Forget MAGA, Investors Want MEGA: Make Europe Great Again (The Wall Street Journal): Once lagging behind U.S. markets, Europe is staging a robust comeback, with Euro Stoxx 50 up 12% since Trump’s victory, spurred by record inflows and mounting calls for regulatory reform.
- China Learned to Embrace What the U.S. Forgot: The Virtues of Creative Destruction (Bloomberg): Amid rising U.S. tariffs and a faltering property market, China is cutting back on government spending, letting weaker sectors collapse so resources can shift to tech and innovation.
- Asian Shares Slide as U.S. Curbs China Investment, Euro Gain Fades (Reuters): Asian shares fell Tuesday amid U.S. restrictions on Chinese investments. MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index dropped 1% and Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.3%.
In the Ether
