By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Macroeconomic factors continue to drive bitcoin’s (BTC) short-term price volatility as it holds steady above $80,000, with a wave of significant news emerging over the past 24 hours.

Still, there’s a risk-off feeling in the air as the divergence between bitcoin and the broader crypto market grows. Bitcoin dominance has surged to 62%, approaching a year-to-date high, while the ether-to-bitcoin (ETH-BTC) ratio has turned negative on a four-year compound annual basis, meaning ETH is underperforming.

Meanwhile, Trump’s trade wars persist as another concern reining in optimism in the market. That’s not just with Canada, but also in the form of metal tariffs, prompting retaliatory measures from the European Union.

One of the most intriguing developments comes from Canada, where newly appointed Prime Minister Mark Carney has filed to sell U.S. dollar bonds. While the size of the sale remains undisclosed, it’s worth noting the country is the sixth-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, possessing $379 billion as of the end of 2024. If the sale proceeds, it could put upward pressure on yields, which is the opposite of what Trump wants.

The Treasury yield narrative is paramount because roughly $9 trillion worth of U.S. debt is set to mature or require refinancing this year alone. This is one of the key reasons why the U.S. administration is eager to bring down Treasury yields.

More immediately, market attention is turning to today’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, with risk-asset bulls hoping for a softer inflation print. The S&P 500 is hovering around correction territory, down nearly 10%. If inflation comes in hotter than expected, risk assets could face further downside. Stay Alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
• Macro
  • March 12, 8:00 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases February consumer price inflation data.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 1.3% vs. Prev. 0.16%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 5% vs. Prev. 4.56%
  • March 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases February consumer price inflation data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3.3%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.5%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 3%
  • March 12, 9:45 a.m.: The Bank of Canada announces its interest-rate decision followed by a press conference (livestream link) 45 minutes later.
    • Policy Interest Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 3%
  • March 12, 12:00 p.m.: Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service releases February consumer price inflation data.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.8% vs. Prev. 1.2%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 10.1% vs. Prev. 9.9%
  • March 13, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases February producer price inflation data.
    • Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.3%
    • Core PPI YoY Est. 3.6% vs. Prev. 3.6%
    • PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%
    • PPI YoY Est. 3.3% vs. Prev. 3.5%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • March 12 (TBC): TeraWulf (WULF), $-0.03
  • March 14: Bit Digital (BTBT), pre-market, $-0.05
  • March 24 (TBC): Galaxy Digital Holdings (TSE: GLXY), C$0.38

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
• Unlocks
  • March 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.93% of circulating supply worth $58.26 million.
  • March 14: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 2.33% of its circulating supply worth $10.67 million.
  • March 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.19% of its circulating supply worth $10.35 million.
  • March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.1% of its circulating supply worth $31.53 million.
  • March 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of its circulating supply worth $79.60 million.
  • March 21: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.39% of circulating supply worth $12.70 million.
• Token Listings
  • March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• The freshly issued BMT tokens of Bubblemaps, a crypto transparency and on-chain analysis tool, are down more than 50% since going live on Tuesday.
• Bubblemaps uses clustering to group wallet addresses into bubbles, revealing whale concentrations, insider control or suspicious patterns (e.g. a deployer with 76% of supply), helping investors assess risks through visual ownership maps.
• BMT can be used to access an “Intel Desk” for community-driven scam investigations and premium analytics features, and participate in governance.
• People are slamming BMT for a nearly 90% supply concentration in one wallet, a mintable contract risking inflation, an elitist airdrop excluding many, and unlocked liquidity raising rug-pull fears, which is rather ironic for a transparency-focused project.

Derivatives Positioning

• Cumulative open interest in ETH standard and perpetual futures has risen to 9.75 million ETH, the highest since Feb. 3. The count has increased from 8.4 million ETH four weeks ago, which shows traders have been selling into the falling market.
• Open interest in BTC perp and standard futures remains light, with funding rates marginally positive. SOL, ADA, TRX and LINK still see negative perpetual funding rates.
• Deribit-listed BTC and ETH options continue to exhibit a bias for puts out to May expiry, with meaningful constructive outlook for calls emerging from the third quarter.
• Overnight block flows featured selling higher strike BTC and ETH calls and purchase of short-tenor puts.

Market Movements:

• BTC is down 0.55% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $82,577.14 (24hrs: +0.87%)
• ETH is down 2.6% at $1,892.41 (24hrs: -1.58%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1% at 2,556.70 (24hrs: +0.52%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 32 bps at 3.43%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.007% (2.54% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is down 0.31% at 103.52
• Gold is unchanged at $2,914.29/oz
• Silver is up 0.69% at $33.01/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 36,819.09
• Hang Seng closed -0.76 at 23,600.31
• FTSE is up 0.43% at 8,532.17
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.19% at 5,373.08
• DJIA closed on Tuesday -1.14% at 41,433.48
• S&P 500 closed -0.76% at 5,572.07
• Nasdaq closed -0.18% at 17,436.10
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.54% at 24,248.20
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.44% at 2,307.52
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.28%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.54% at 5,607.25
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.67% at 19,529.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.37% at 41,627.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 62.13 (-0.16%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02290 (-0.06%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 815 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $46.1
• Total Fees: 6.03 BTC / $490,764
• CME Futures Open Interest: 142,725 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 28.3 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 8.04%

Technical Analysis

• The dollar index, which represents the greenback’s exchange rate against a basket of fiat currencies, has dropped below the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement support of the late September to January rally.
• The breakdown means a potential soft U.S. CPI release could easily send the index sliding to 102.31, the 78.6% retracement support.
• A deeper slide in the dollar could bode well for risk assets, including BTC.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $260.59 (+8.91%), down 0.58% at $259.09 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $191.69 (+6.95%), unchanged in pre-market
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.27 (-1.09%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.32 (-0.67%), down 0.68% at $13.23
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.72 (+2.12%), down 0.26% at $7.70
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.63 (+7.74%), down 0.46% at $8.59
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.26 (+3.51%), down 0.73% at $8.20
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $15.08 (+4.14%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $32.80 (+0.18%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $24.50 (-0.41%), up 0.94% at $24.73

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: -$371 million
• Cumulative net flows: $35.47 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1,121 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$21.6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.66 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.571 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows daily trading volume on Hyperliquid, the leading perpetual-focused decentralized exchange.
• Despite the market swoon, volumes have held remarkably steady, contrasting the sharp slowdown on other avenues like Solana’s Raydium.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

If you follow financial markets, you’ve probably come across the terms “risk-on” and “risk-off.” Now we seem to be entering a new era of “tariffs on/tariffs off.”

In a risk-on environment, growth-sensitive assets like stocks and cryptocurrencies tend to rise due to expectations of economic expansion or accommodative monetary policy. Conversely, risk-off situations reflects a lack of investor confidence, leading to sell-offs and a preference for safer assets.

But this week, President Trump’s tariffs announcement have single-handedly guided markets. Early Monday, bitcoin (BTC) plummeted to nearly $91,000 as Canada and Mexico retaliated against Trump’s tariffs. That was “tariffs on” trading.

Later, it rebounded above $100,000 after Trump paused the Mexico tariffs for the 30 days and announced the creation a sovereign wealth fund, which generated hopes of potential investments in BTC. That was “tariffs off.”

The bullish momentum ran out of steam early Tuesday as China retaliated against Trump’s import tax, reviving “tariffs on” trading. BTC fell over 3% to $98,000, dragging altcoins lower. Nasdaq futures dropped over 0.5% and the dollar drew haven bids.

Bitcoin and the broader crypto market will likely rebound should Trump announce an 11th-hour deal with China, just as he did with Mexico and Canada on Monday. Foreign-exchange market activity suggests that’s likely. The AUD/CAD is down just 0.3% for the day, a sign traders don’t expect a prolonged tariff war between the U.S. and China. (The Australian dollar is widely seen as a proxy for China).

“A cross like AUD/CAD should trade sharply lower in this situation given Canada has dodged tariffs and China has not, but it is only 0.5% lower on the day. That signals markets are pricing in a good chance that the US and China will also strike a deal and delay tariffs,” ING said in a note to clients.

That said, you can never be sure of Trump. So, expect heightened volatility and stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
• Macro
  • Feb. 4, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases December’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report.
    • Job Openings Est. 7.88M vs. Prev. 8.098M
    • Job Quits Prev. 3.065M
  • Feb. 4, 2:30 p.m.: White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, along with four congressional leaders, hold a press conference on digital assets cooperation. Livestream link.
  • Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair Philip N. Jefferson is giving a speech titled “U.S. Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy.”
  • Feb. 5, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases January’s US Services PMI (Final) report.
  • Feb. 5, 10:00 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases January’s Services ISM Report on Business.
    • Services PMI Est. 54.3 vs. Prev. 54.1
    • Services Business Activity Prev. 58.2
    • Services Employment Prev. 51.4
    • Services New Orders Prev. 54.2
    • Services Prices Prev. 64.4
  • Feb. 5, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing on “Investigating the Real Impacts of Debanking in America,” featuring four witnesses including Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital. Livestream link.
  • Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Fed Governor Michelle W. Bowman is giving a speech titled “Brief Economic Update and Bank Regulation.”
• Earnings
  • Feb. 5: MicroStrategy (MSTR), post-market, $-0.09
  • 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, break-even
  • Feb. 12: IREN (IREN), post-market
  • Feb. 12 (TBA): Metaplanet (TYO:3350)
  • Feb. 12: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.25

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Compound DAO is discussing the creation of Morpho-powered lending vaults on Polygon curated by Gauntlet. Polygon Labs is set to offer $1.5 million in POL, matched with $1.5 million in COMP to incentivize usage.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on whether to transfer 1,885 ETH in Nova transaction fees to its Treasury through the modernized fee collection infrastructure outlined in the ova Fee Router Proposal.
  • Aave DAO is nearing the end of a vote on deploying Aave v3 on Sonic, a new layer-1 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain with a high transaction throughput.
  • Lido DAO is discussing distributing rewards to LDO stakers based on the protocol’s net revenue, as well as the use of a percentage of its annual revenue to buyback LDO tokens.
  • Feb. 4, 1 p.m.: TRON DAO and CryptoQuant to host a network review diving into performance, adoption and key metrics.
  • Feb. 4, 12 p.m.: Stellar to host its Q4 quarterly review.
• Unlocks
  • Feb. 5: XDC Network (XDC) to unlock 5.36% of circulating supply worth $81.58 million.
  • Feb. 5: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.67% of circulating supply worth $17.29 million.
  • Feb. 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.17% of circulating supply worth $31.60 million.
  • Feb. 10: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.97% of circulating supply worth $68.20 million.
• Token Launches
  • Feb. 4: Vine (VINE), Bio Protocol (BIO), Swarms (SWARMS), and Sonic SVM (SONIC) to be listed on Kraken.

Conferences:

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Entities behind President Donald Trump’s memecoin TRUMP amassed nearly $100 million in trading fees within two weeks of its Jan. 17 introduction.
• The fees were generated on Meteora, a DeFi exchange where the initial TRUMP coins were traded. Here, fees are charged for liquidity provision, which benefits the coin’s creators by allowing them to earn from trading activities indefinitely, according to Reuters.
• A marketwide drop on Monday sent the token spiraling further down, bringing losses from the peak to a staggering 75%.
• The president continues to endorse the token on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he posted “I LOVE $TRUMP!!” alongside a link to purchase the token over the weekend.

Derivatives Positioning

• Perpetual funding rates for SOL, DOGE, ADA, LINK and AVAX remain negative, indicating a bias for short positions. These coins may see outsized gains on the back of a short-squeeze should the market environment flip back to “tariffs off” during the American hours.
• Deribit’s ETH volatility index has retreated to 70% from above 100%. BTC’s volatility has faded from Monday’s spike to 61%.
• The perpetual futures open interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta for most large-cap tokens, excluding TRX, is negative for the past 24 hours. That raises a question on the sustainability of the price recovery.
• Deribit’s BTC, ETH options expiring this month continue to exhibit downside fears. The broader bias for bullish calls remains intact.
• Block flows featured a bear call spread in SOL, a calendar spread in BTC and long positions in the ETH $3K and $3.2K calls.

Market Movements:

• BTC is down 1.85% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $99,347.23 (24hrs: +4.4%)
• ETH is up 2.3% at $2,777.08 (24hrs: +7.45%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 2.21% at 3,154.76 (24hrs: +5.33%)
• CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 88 bps at 3.91%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0035% (3.76% annualized) on Binance
• DXY is down 0.39% at 108.57
• Gold is down 0.16% at $2,814.16/oz
• Silver is up 0.18% at $31.65/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.72% at 38,798.37
• Hang Seng closed +2.83% at 20,789.96
• FTSE is down 0.12% at 8,572.97
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.13% at 5,224.71
• DJIA closed on Monday -0.28% at 44,421.91
• S&P 500 closed -0.76% at 5,994.57
• Nasdaq closed -1.2% at 19,391.96
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.14% at 25,241.76
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.25% at 2,376.48
• U.S. 10-year Treasury is up 2 bps at 4.58%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.16% at 6012.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 21,398.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.21% at 44,472.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 61.70 (1.06%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02750 (-3.27%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 833 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $57.5
• Total Fees: 6.1 BTC / $592,574
• CME Futures Open Interest: 164,925 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 35.0 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 9.94%

Technical Analysis

• Bitcoin’s daily chart shows a classic “stair step” bull run, characterized by price rises followed by consolidations, representing accumulation periods.
• The latest consolidation between $90,000 and $110,000 is the third such pattern since 2023. A breakout would mean continuation of the uptrend.
• Note, however, that gains seen after the second consolidation between $50,000 and $70,000 were significantly less than those seen after the first breakout in late 2023.

Crypto Equities

• MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $347.09 (+3.67%), down 1.35% at $342.40 in pre-market.
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $284.41 (-2.38%), down 0.47% at $283.08 in pre-market.
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$28.02 (-1.62%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.95 (-2.13%), down 1.23% at $17.73 in pre-market.
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.99 (+0.93%), down 0.58%% at $11.92 in pre-market.
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.33 (+0.49%), down 1.05% at $12.20 in pre-market.
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.59 (+1.44%), down 0.85% at $10.50 in pre-market.
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.69 (+0.62%).
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $50.46 (-2.89%).
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $59.59 (+19.47%), unchanged in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: -$234.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $40.26 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.177 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $83.6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.84 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.648 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• Google trends for the worldwide search query “how to buy crypto” shows retail investor interest in digital assets has cooled since hitting a peak of 100 last month.

While You Were Sleeping

• Ethereum Raises Gas Limits for First Time Since 2021, Boosting ETH Appeal (CoinDesk): Ethereum’s gas limit rose to nearly 32 million units, which should help increase the network’s throughput and potentially lower transaction costs during periods of high demand.
• Lending Protocol Aave Processes $200M in Liquidation Without Adding to Bad-Debt Burden (CoinDesk): Aave processed $210 million in liquidations on Monday, the most since August, without adding new debt. Strong risk controls reduced existing liabilities by 2.7% amid market volatility.
• TRON, Movement Labs Deny ‘Token Swap’ Deal for World Liberty Financial Inclusion (CoinDesk): Representatives from TRON and Movement Labs rejected allegations of token swap deals for treasury inclusion with World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
• Yuan Extends Loss With China Proxies as US Trade War Reignites (Bloomberg): China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. coal, LNG, oil and agricultural equipment spooked Asia-Pacific markets, pressuring offshore Chinese yuan. Talks between the U.S. and China could help deescalate the trade war.
• Stocks Erase Gains After China Retaliates Against U.S. (Financial Times): Shortly after Trump’s 10% tariff on all Chinese goods took effect on Tuesday, Beijing hit back by imposing import tariffs on various U.S. goods, causing global stocks to give back some of Monday’s gains.
• Euro Stays Weaker Amid Tariff Risks (The Wall Street Journal): Danske Bank’s Stefan Mellin says Trump’s threats of tariffs on EU imports are likely to keep the euro under pressure over the next several weeks even though these might just be “primarily a negotiating tool.”

In the Ether

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market is treading water and the biggest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, is taking a bull breather. Its upward momentum is getting stifled by Trump’s renewed tariff threats, which are also sending gold prices soaring to record highs and propping up demand for the U.S. dollar.

But there is action in some corners of the market. The VIRTUAL token popped after its recent listing on Upbit, and Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has seen a 3% gain. Litecoin is also making waves, with its perpetual futures open interest on centralized exchanges climbing to 5.19 million LTC, the most since Dec. 9, according to Coinglass. The surge hints at fresh capital flowing into the market, likely fueled by hopes of a spot ETF listing in the U.S.

Speaking of stablecoins, USDC is stealing the spotlight as the star performer this month, boasting a remarkable market cap growth of 21% to $53.12 billion. That’s its best month since May 2021, according to TradingView data. In contrast, USDT, the heavyweight champion of dollar-pegged stablecoins, eked out just a 1% increase. USDC even outperformed bitcoin, which grew a respectable 10%.

According to IntoTheBlock, USDC’s outperformance is likely due to its compliance with Europe’s MiCA regulations, while rivals like USDT face tough headwinds. But don’t count USDT out just yet; its market is starting to bounce back, and the simultaneous growth of USDC is offering a bullish impulse for the crypto market.

As we keep an eye on the macro landscape, the pivotal U.S. core PCE — the Fed’s go-to measure for inflation — is set to be released. Expectations are for a hot headline figure, with core reading, which excludes food and energy, showing positive improvements that might help BTC break out of its dull price action near $104,000.

However, ING is cautioning that the dollar might stay strong into the weekend.

“If we don’t receive any news on Canada and Mexico by the end of today, there’s a risk that the dollar could strengthen further as the market starts to price in a higher chance of tariffs being announced tomorrow,” it wrote. So, stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • Jan. 31: Crypto.com is suspending purchases of cryptocurrencies USDT, WBTC, DAI, PAX, PAXG, PYUSD, CDCETH, CDCSOL, LCRO, and XSGD in the EU to comply with MiCA regulations. Withdrawals will be supported through Q1.
  • Feb. 2, 8:00 p.m.: Core blockchain Athena hard fork network upgrade (v1.0.14)
  • Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 PEPE.
  • Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based layer-2 mainnet.
  • Feb. 5 (after market close): MicroStrategy (MSTR) Q4 FY 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 6, 8:00 a.m.: Shentu Chain network upgrade (v2.14.0).
  • Feb. 11 (after market close): Exodus Movement (EXOD) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 12 (before market open): Hut 8 (HUT) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 13: CleanSpark (CLSK) Q1 FY 2025 earnings.
  • Feb. 13 (after market close): Coinbase Global (COIN) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 15: Qtum (QTUM) hard fork network upgrade at block 4,590,000.
  • Feb. 18 (after market close): Semler Scientific (SMLR) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 20 (after market close): Block (XYZ) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 27: Riot Platforms (RIOT) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • March 4: Cipher Mining (CIFR) releases Q4 2024 earnings.
• Macro
  • Jan. 31, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases December’s Personal Income and Outlays report.
    • Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.1%.
    • Core PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.8% vs. Prev. 2.8%.
    • PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.1%.
    • PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.4%.
  • Feb. 2, 8:45 p.m.: China’s Caixin releases January’s Manufacturing PMI report.
    • Manufacturing PMI Est. 50.5 vs. Prev. 50.5.

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Compound DAO is voting on an upgrade of its governance contracts from GovernorBravo to OpenZeppelin’s modern Governor implementation.
  • Balancer DAO is voting whether to initiate a token swap between Balancer DAO and CoW DAO involving 200,000 BAL tokens and around 631,000 COW tokens.
• Unlocks
  • Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $46.39 million.
  • Feb. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock about 2.13% of its circulating supply worth $261.91 million.
  • Feb. 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock about 1.34% of its circulating supply worth $29.53 million.
• Token Listings
  • Jan. 31: Movement (MOVE), Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) and Sundog (SUNDOG) to be listed on Indodax.

Conferences:

Derivatives Positioning

• TRX, TRUMP and OM registered the biggest increase in perpetual futures open interest. Traders, however, seem to be shorting TRUMP, as evident from the negative cumulative volume delta.
• BTC, ETH open interest and CVD are little changed. The BTC CME basis is hovering around 10%.
• Flows in Deribit’s options market have been muted, but BTC and ETH calls continue to trade pricier than puts.

Market Movements:

• BTC is down 0.29% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $104,810.50 (24hrs: -0.47%)
• ETH is up 2.39% to $3,324 (24hrs: +3.32%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 0.3% to 3,838.81 (24hrs: +0.28%)
• CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 4 bps to 3.07%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0012% (1.2961% annualized) on OKX
• DXY is up 0.47% at 108.30
• Gold is unchanged at $2,794.77/oz
• Silver is up 0.19% at $31.60/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.15% to 39,572.49
• Hang Seng closed +0.14% to 20,225.11
• FTSE is up 0.3% at 8,673.13
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.39% at 5,302.75
• DJIA closed on Thursday +0.38% to 44,882.13
• S&P 500 closed +0.53% to 6,071.17
• Nasdaq closed +0.25% to 19,681.75
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.31% to 25,808.25
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +2.21% to 2,388.03
• U.S. 10-year Treasury is up 2 bps at 4.536%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.43% at 6,125.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.79% at 21,795.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.32% at 45,200.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 59.21 (-0.11%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.03127 (0.84%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 781 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $61.7
• Total Fees: 4.97 BTC/ $522,698
• CME Futures Open Interest: 176,270 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 37.3 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 10.60%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows $60 has emerged as a strong resistance for BlackRock’s IBIT exchange-trade fund since December, with bulls consistently failing to establish a foothold above that level.
• Such patterns represent bullish exhaustion and often pave the way for minor price pullbacks that shake out weak hands, setting the stage for the next leg higher.

Crypto Equities

• MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $340.09 (-0.34%), up 0.2% at $340.77 in pre-market.
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $301.30 (+3.54%), down 0.17% at $300.80 in pre-market.
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$29.33 (+0.83%).
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.18 (+4.13%), up 0.36% at $19.25 in pre-market.
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.90 (+6.06%), up 0.76% at $11.99 in pre-market.
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.26 (+6.98%), up 3.18% at $12.65 in pre-market.
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.97 (+6.92%), up 0.55% at $11.03 in pre-market.
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.50 (+6.33%), up 3.47% at $23.28 in pre-market.
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.15 (+0.13%).
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $61.38 (-31.27%), down 2.23%% at $60.01 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $588.2 million
• Cumulative net flows: $40.18 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.18 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $67.77 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.73 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.65 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The MOVE index, which represents an options-based measure of how volatile the U.S. Treasury market is likely to become in the next four weeks, has turned lower.
• Declining Treasury market volatility often bodes well for risky assets.

While You Were Sleeping

• Bitcoin Steady, Gold Tokens Shine as XAU Hits Record High; Inflation in Tokyo Rises (CoinDesk): President Trump’s tariff threats are a headwind for bitcoin, but derivatives data indicate skepticism toward a major downturn, with traders remaining bullish and growing interest in state-level BTC reserves.
• Grayscale Files SEC Proposal to Convert XRP Trust Into ETF (CoinDesk): On Thursday, NYSE Arca filed a Form 19b-4 with the SEC to list shares of Grayscale’s XRP Trust as an ETF.
• VIRTUAL Surges 28% as Upbit Listing Exposes the Token to Altcoin Savvy South Koreans (CoinDesk): The price of VIRTUAL, the native token of Virtuals Protocol, a decentralized platform on the Base blockchain for creating AI agents, surged after Upbit said it would list the token.
• Trump Is Getting the Lower Interest Rates He Demanded From Everyone but the Fed (Reuters): Despite Trump’s calls for rate cuts, the Fed remains hawkish, while the Bank of Canada, Bank of England and European Central Bank are easing monetary policy.
• Trump Says 25% Tariffs on Mexico and Canada May Not Include Oil (CNBC): Trump confirmed on Thursday that 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports will start Feb. 1 but left oil uncertain.
• Japan’s Economy Faces Fallout From Trump’s China Tariff Threats (Bloomberg): Japan’s chief economist, Tomoko Hayashi, said a U.S.-China trade war could hurt her country’s economy, though she believes firms are better prepared now than during Trump’s first term.

In the Ether