Connect with us

Markets

Bitcoin Jumps to $105,000 as Fed Fears Fade

Published

on



Bitcoin (BTC) soared past the $105,000 mark on Wednesday as investor sentiment shifted following the Federal Reserve’s decision to pause its interest rate cuts. 

The world’s largest crypto, which initially dipped to $101,800 after the announcement, quickly rebounded, marking its highest level in three days.

During the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the Fed left its benchmark interest rate unchanged, keeping it within the target range of 4.25% to 4.50%. 

Since President Donald Trump’s election victory in November, Bitcoin has gained over 50%, fueled partly by expectations of more crypto-friendly policies under his administration.

As the Federal Reserve continues to monitor economic data, traders remain cautious but optimistic about Bitcoin’s trajectory. 

“Immediate growth, as we’ve seen in previous bull cycles, may not follow as much of the optimism surrounding Trump’s stance on crypto has already been priced in following recent bullish trends,” Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, told Decrypt

The interest rate pause comes after three consecutive rate cuts since September, which slashed the federal funds rate by 100 basis points. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that continued economic strength and persistent inflation during a post-meeting press conference influenced the decision to hold rates steady.

Powell noted while inflation has eased significantly from its 2022 peak of 9.1%, it remains at 2.9% annually, making further rate adjustments uncertain. 

The Fed chair’s remarks initially pushed Bitcoin and equities higher, with BTC crossing $103,000 before surging further.

Traditional markets showed a mixed response, with the Nasdaq falling 1.1% and the S&P 500 declining 0.9%. Gold remained in demand, holding steady above $2,750 in early Asian trading on Thursday.

Powell, when asked about digital assets, stated that U.S. banks are free to serve crypto customers as long as they manage associated risks. 

The Fed chair also hinted at the need for clearer regulations from Congress, which many industry participants viewed as a positive development.

The broader crypto market responded positively to the Fed’s decision, with Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) trading in narrow ranges. ETH is up 2% to $3,184, while SOL has gained 4.1% to $239, CoinGecko data shows.

Despite recent gains, some analysts warn that Bitcoin’s rally could face resistance.

The world’s largest crypto briefly hit a record $109,241 before President Trump’s inauguration in January but has since retraced.

“While some believe the crypto market will get significant attention from the new administration, it’s important to temper price expectations,” Chen said.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

Markets

Franklin Templeton Joins Growing Pile of Solana ETF Applicants

Published

on



Add Franklin Templeton to the list of asset managers seeking approval for exchange-traded funds tracking the ongoing price of Solana

The issuer on Friday afternoon filed an S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a Franklin Solana ETF. 

“The Fund seeks to reflect generally the performance of the price of Solana,” the firm said in its filing. 

San Mateo, California-based Franklin follows multiple other issuing giants seeking an SEC nod for Solana-based funds. Grayscale, Bitwise, Canary, 21Shares, and VanEck have all submitted filings for ETFs based on the performance of the sixth-largest crypto by market capitalization.

Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas has penciled in a 70% chance that Solana ETFs receive a green light this year, although he would not predict the timing. Issuers must still contend with regulatory review, ongoing enforcement actions, and public comment on the filings. 

Solana’s price dip

Solana was recently trading at about $168, down slightly over the past 24 hours, according to crypto markets data provider CoinGecko. The token of the smart contracts blockchain has dropped more than 16% over the past week following its association with a scandal involving the Libra token, and wider slowing of meme coin projects that have favored the network. 

Still, investor demand for crypto-focused assets remains strong, the continuing after-effects of spot Bitcoin funds’ dramatic success. The 11 Bitcoin funds have accumulated more than $40 billion in net inflows over the past year, ushering in the subsequent approval of ETFs tracking the price of Ethereum last July.

On Thursday, the issuer debuted the Templeton Crypto Index ETF (EZPZ) to track price movements for the two top cryptocurrencies by market value based on CF Benchmark’s Institutional Digital Asset Index.

The Franklin Bitcoin ETF’s (EZBC) $442 million in net inflows ranks just eighth among the Bitcoin funds, according to UK-based asset manager Farside Investors. The Franklin Ethereum ETF (EZET)  has $34 million in AUM to rank sixth among eight funds in that group.

“This move reflects a growing interest among asset managers to offer investment products beyond Bitcoin, especially as regulatory conditions become more favorable,” Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull Capital, told Decrypt. “I am optimistic about the approval prospects for these ETFs, both because of the crypto-friendly regulatory environment and the recent success of Bitcoin ETFs.”

Franklin Templeton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

Continue Reading

Arthur Hayes

Rollback Ethereum to Negate $1.4B Bybit Hack, Arthur Hayes Tells Vitalik Buterin

Published

on



Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and major ether (ETH) holder, asked Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to rollback the network in order to assist hacked exchange Bybit, which lost nearly $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) on Friday.

“@VitalikButerin will you advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official. My own view as a mega $ETH bag holder is $ETH stopped being money in 2016 after the DAO hack hardfork. If the community wanted to do it again, I would support it because we already voted no on immutability in 2016 [wh]y not do it again?” Hayes said on X.

Buterin was yet to reply as of time of publication.

The Bybit hack came into light on Friday when on-chain analyst ZachXBT noted suspicious outflows of over $1.4 billion from the exchange, with the attacker quickly swapping mETH and stETH for ether through a decentralized exchange.

The attacker then split 10,000 ETH to 39 different addresses and another 10,000 ETH to nine addresses, Gautham Santhosh, co-founder of Polynomial.fi, explained on X.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said that the hacker “took control of the specific ETH cold wallet and transferred all the ETH in the cold wallet to this unidentified address.” Zhou confirmed that the exchange “is solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered.”

One of the potential ways to address hacking is to roll back the blockchain. It involves reverting the blockchain to a state before the occurrence of a specific event, in this case, the hack. That way, malicious transactions resulting from the hack can be erased, effectively restoring lost or stolen funds. Implementing a rollback requires consensus from the network participants.

For instance, in 2016, the Ethereum network was rolled back using a hard fork to reverse a theft of $60 million in ether from The DAO (30% of all ETH in circulation back then). The hard fork split the chain into two – Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

In 2019, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao and his team considered pushing for a rollback on the Bitcoin network following a $40 million hack. However, the Bitcoin mining community criticized the idea of going back against the principle of decentralization and immutability, which are fundamental to blockchain technology.

Immutability is a security feature that prevents data from being changed after it’s added to the blockchain to make it trustworthy and tamper-proof. There are similar concerns regarding a potential Ethereum rollover.

“I wish we could roll back for the Bybit hack, I’m not against the idea. But the DAO hack was 15% of ETH with a clean recovery path. Today, a rollback would break bridges, stablecoins, L2s, RWAs and so much more. ETH ecosystem is just too interconnected now for a clean solution like 2016,” Santhosh said.

Sina 21st Capital explained that Ethereum is now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Ethereum is toast. They can roll back the chain and destroy what is left of the decentralization claim or allow North Korean baad actors to keep $1.4B of ETH and unleash an eternal internal battle. Either way, it is terrible,” Sina 21st Capital said on X.

Ether has dropped nearly 3% in 24 hours, but continues to trade rangebound between $2,600 and $2,800, CoinDesk data show.





Source link

Continue Reading

Altcoin

Maker Gears to Extend Rally Next Week, 15% Gains Likely 

Published

on


Maker (MKR) price rallied over 44% in the past week. The DeFi token holds steady even as large wallet investors and whales holding MKR take profits in the ongoing price surge. On-chain and technical indicators support further gains in Maker. 

Maker derivatives and on-chain analysis 

Sky Protocol (formerly Maker’s) (MKR) MKR token has defied market trends in the past week. The token gained over 44% in value, according to price data on Crypto.news. Derivatives data and on-chain analysis supports a bullish thesis for the DeFi token for next week. 

Derivatives data from crypto intelligence platform Coinglass shows a large positive spike in Open Interest in MKR on February 21. The spike represents a massive increase in the total value of open contracts in MKR across derivatives exchanges. 

Coinglass data shows that MKR OI is $116.85 million at the time of writing on Friday, February 21. 

Maker MKR
MKR Futures Open Interest | Source: Coinglass

The total value of assets locked in MKR surged to $5.675 billion, as seen on DeFiLlama. This coincides with the rising price, relevance, and demand for tokens among traders. The rebranding to Sky protocol has proven effective for driving adoption in market participants.

Maker MKR
Maker TVL | Source: DeFiLlama

Santiment data shows several negative spikes in Network realized profit/loss metric in the MKR chart since mid-January 2025. This shows several traders and MKR holders are shedding their holdings and realizing losses. 

Consistent realization of losses is typically considered a sign of capitulation and is consistent with an eventual recovery in the token’s price. MKR’s daily active addresses recorded a nearly three-month peak this week, signalling the rise in interest from traders. 

MKR token’s supply held by whales (excluding exchange wallets) has climbed, recovering from the decline noted in the first week of February. This is another bullish sign for the DeFi token. 

Maker MKR
Maker on-chain analysis | Source: Santiment

The In/Out of money around price indicator on IntoTheBlock shows that 30% of the wallet addresses holding MKR are currently sitting on unrealized losses. 65.55% of MKR token holders have unrealized gains in their portfolio. 

Combining the In/Out of the money with the Network realized profit/loss metric, it is less likely that profitable traders take profits as the current trend is that of capitulation. The likelihood of further selling pressure on MKR is low for next week, meaning the token could extend its gains and maintain the underlying positive momentum. 

Maker MKR
In/Out of the Money around price | Source: IntoTheBlock

Maker (MKR) weekly price forecast 

Maker broke out of its downward trend on February 12, since then the token has rallied, extending gains nearly everyday this week. At the time of writing, MKR is trading at $1,473, on Friday. 

The token is close to resistance at $1,632 and $2,050, two key levels in MKR’s upward trend between October 26 and December 4, as observed in the daily price chart. In the event of a correction, MKR could find support at $1,125. 

Two key technical indicators, the Moving average convergence divergence indicator and relative strength index flash bullish signs on the daily timeframe. MACD shows consecutive green histogram bars above the neutral line and RSI reads 74 and is sloping upwards. 

While this typically generates a sell signal, in the case of MKR, MACD and the underlying positive momentum in the MKR price trend support further gains. 

Maker MKR
MKR/USDT daily price chart | Source: Crypto.news

A rally to test resistance at $1,632 marks a nearly 15% rally in MKR price. 

Even as whales cash out their MKR holdings amidst price surges, they fail to influence prices negatively. While it is typical of a token to observe a decline in its price if large entities shed their holdings, MKR price is holding steady. 

A wallet address identified as inveteratus.eth on the blockchain sold 1,230 MKR worth 1.78 million USDC and secured a 30% profit of $418,000 within less than a month. 

On-chain data shows that in April 2024, the whale took a $1.86 million profit from previous MKR trades. The cumulative profit of the whale is $2.27 million through MKR trades. 

MKR holds steady amidst DAO drama 

The drama surrounding Sky Protocol (Maker DAO) is being identified as a “potential governance attack,” according to the community on X. 

@ImperiumPaper, a long-time Maker community member, expressed dissent over a fast-tracked governance proposal that asked for relaxing restrictions on borrowing against MKR, the governance token of the Sky Protocol chain. 

As the community debates the proposal, one side argues that it has “bypassed due process” and the effects would include “>2x the credit line for MKR token holders, raising their LTV from 50% to 80%.”

While the DAO drama unfolds, the token continues its rally. 

Maker tokens worth $17 million burnt, support gains

The second market mover for MKR this week is the $17 million token burn, identified on the blockchain. When a large volume of tokens is burnt, they are removed from the supply permanently, and they reduce the selling pressure, supporting price gains. 

Whale alert: a tracker identified the 14,000 MKR token burn worth upwards of $16.9 million, adding to the catalysts driving the price higher this week. 

Maker MKR
MKR token burn | Source: Whalealert

At the time of writing, MKR trades at $1,432 on Friday. 

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.





Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement [ethereumads]

Trending

    wpChatIcon