Written by Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless stated otherwise)
Cryptocurrency traders are reducing their leverage following Wednesday’s FOMC minutes, which indicated that the Fed intends to keep rates steady until inflation decreases, and mentioned the possibility of pausing or slowing the balance sheet runoff.
Despite this, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell, and the dollar declined. Cryptocurrencies have seen increases, with the CoinDesk 20 Index rising by 1.4% and bitcoin up 1.2% over the past 24 hours. These increases followed comments from Czech National Bank Governor Ales Michl, who supported bitcoin as a reserve asset, and remarks from President Donald Trump stating he had terminated “Joe Biden’s war on Bitcoin and crypto.”
Bitcoin traders are adopting a cautious stance as decreasing demand, limited blockchain activity, and weak liquidity inflows suggest a potential decline toward $86,000, while it currently trades above $97,000. This cautious approach is reflected not only in decreasing volatility but also in a marked reduction in open interest.
Open interest in bitcoin futures has decreased to below $60 billion from nearly $70 billion in late January, according to Coinglass data. This drop coincides with a diminishing interest in memecoins, particularly after setbacks like Argentina’s Libra incident, which have dampened excitement.
“At this moment, the market seems to be in a cooling-off phase,” said David Gogel, VP of strategy and operations at the dYdX Foundation, in an interview with CoinDesk. “Bitcoin has maintained its ground, but following a failure to surpass $105k in January, we’ve noticed slow capital inflows, while speculative assets such as Solana and memecoins have experienced downturns.”
This downturn is evident in the total open interest for futures contracts related to SOL, the token native to Solana. Open interest fell from nearly $6 billion at the end of last month to about $4.3 billion currently, with TheTie reporting this data. Solana stands out as a major network for memecoins.
“Market participants should remain aware of broader macroeconomic factors and geopolitical events that could stimulate movement,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake O said to CoinDesk. Such geopolitical factors include increasing tensions between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which resulted in a noticeable public exchange of words.
The reduction in leverage and a retreat from riskier investments hint that the market might be transitioning into a new phase. What this phase will specifically encompass is yet to be determined. Stay vigilant!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) to serve as the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.
Feb. 24: Ethereum’s Pecta upgrade testing on the Holesky testnet to begin at epoch 115968.
Feb. 25, 9:00 a.m.: Ethereum Foundation research team to hold a Reddit AMA.
Feb. 27: Launch of Solana-based L2 Sonic SVM (SONIC) mainnet (“Mobius”).
Macro
Feb. 20, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada to publish January’s producer price inflation data.
PPI MoM Est. 0.8% vs. Prev. 0.2%
PPI YoY Prev. 4.1%
Feb. 20, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Department of Labor to issue the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims report for the week ending Feb. 15.
Initial Jobless Claims Est. 215K vs. Prev. 213K
Feb. 20, 5:00 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler to deliver a speech titled “Navigating Inflation Waves While Riding on the Phillips Curve” in Washington. Livestream link.
Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications to announce January’s consumer price inflation data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.1% vs. Prev. 3%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.6%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.6%
Feb. 21, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global to release February’s U.S. Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.
Composite PMI Prev. 52.7
Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.2
Services PMI Est. 53 vs Prev. 52.9
Earnings
Feb. 20: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.88
Feb. 24: Riot Platforms RRIOT, post-market, $-0.18
Feb. 25: Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, $-0.17
Feb. 25: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.09
Feb. 26: MARA Holdings MMARA, post-market, $-0.13
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Sky DAO is considering withdrawing some of the Smart Burn Engine’s LP tokens to prevent malicious entities from acquiring them.
DYdX DAO is contemplating raising the maximum notional value of liquidations that can occur within a given block on the dYdX protocol to improve speed and risk management during liquidations.
Unlocks
Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) plans to unlock 4.66% of its circulating supply worth $78.6 million.
Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) is set to unlock 1.92% of its circulating supply valued at $34.23 million.
Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) will unlock 0.74% of its circulating supply, valued at $81.07 million.
Token Launches
Feb. 20: Pi Network (PI) to be listed on MEXC, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, CoinW, DigiFinex, and other exchanges.
Conferences:
CoinDesk’s Consensus will convene in Hong Kong from Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto from May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK to receive a 15% discount on passes.
Day 3 of 3: Consensus Hong Kong
Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)
Feb. 24: RWA London Summit 2025
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
March 2-3: Crypto Expo Europe (Bucharest, Romania)
March 8: Bitcoin Alive (Sydney, Australia)
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
PI, the native token of the Pi Network, launched at $1.70, quickly surged to $2.00, but subsequently lost 50% of its value within the next two hours.
The network claims a user base of 60 million, although there are fewer than 1 million active wallets.
With a self-reported circulating supply of 6.3 billion, PI presently holds a market cap of $7.8 billion.
The concept behind Pi Network allows users to mine tokens via their smartphones. It has garnered significant attention from retail traders, drawing comparisons to previous viral tokens like SafeMoon.
Token holders are exposed to liquidity risks. The most liquid exchange for the token is OKX, where 2% market depth—the capital needed to shift the price by 2% in either direction—ranges from $33K to $60K. This implies that an order as large as $100K could significantly affect the market, creating volatile trading conditions.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC volatility in derivatives has reached a monthly low, dropping from an annualized 36.09% to 28.43%.
In contrast, ETH has seen its annualized volatility increase from 49.43% to 74.72%, based on data released by Deribit.
Approximately $1.5 billion worth of BTC and ETH options are set to expire tomorrow, with nearly $5 billion expiring within the next week.
Total open interest across all trading pairs on retail centralized exchanges has risen by 2.10% today to $80.8 billion.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.10% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday to $97,300.67 (24hrs: +1.09%)
ETH is up 0.60% at $2,738.90 (24hrs: +0.51%)
CoinDesk 20 has increased by 1.72% to 3,250.68 (24hrs: +1.67%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate has dropped by 6 bps to 2.99%
BTC funding rate on Binance is at 0.0037% (4.0920% annualized)
DXY is down 0.18% at 106.98
Gold is priced at $2,950.84/oz after a 0.60% increase
Silver increased by 1.52%, settling at $33.19/oz
Nikkei 225 closed at -1.24% at 38,678.04
Hang Seng ended down 1.60% at 22,576.98
FTSE is down 0.24% at 8,690.90
Euro Stoxx 50 increased by 0.62% to 5,494.99
DJIA closed up 0.16% at 44,627.59 on Wednesday
S&P 500 finished +0.24% at 6,144.15
Nasdaq ended +0.07% at 20,056.25
S&P/TSX Composite Index remained unchanged at 25,626.16
S&P 40 Latin America closed down 1.35% at 2,463.68
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield decreased by 1 bps to 4.53%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.2% to 6,150.50
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures dropped by 0.22% to 22,200.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.15% at 44,643
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.10 (0.04%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02819 (0.28%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 831 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $54.24
Total Fees: 5.127 BTC / $499,118
CME Futures Open Interest: 172,360 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 32.8 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.32%
Technical Analysis
Bitcoin has bounced back from the yearly open at $93,385, recovering the 100-day exponential moving average on the daily chart.
In the last three substantial sell-offs, the price has consistently formed higher lows, indicating strong buyer interest at the current lows.
Nevertheless, the short-term 20-day and 50-day EMAs recently crossed for the first time since August 5th, suggesting caution may be warranted in the short term.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy MMSTR: closed on Wednesday at $318.67 (-4.58%), up 2.01% at $325.08 in pre-market
Coinbase Global CCOIN: closed at $258.67 (-2.25%), up 1.76% at $263.22
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$25.32 (-3.76%)
MARA Holdings MMARA: closed at $15.78 (-1.68%), up 1.33% at $15.99.
Riot Platforms RRIOT: closed at $11.56 (unchanged), up 1.04% at $11.68
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.02 (-2.99%), up 1.41% at $12.19
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.89 (-1.88%), up 1.81% at $10.07
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.78 (-0.26%), unchanged
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.22 (+2.96%), up 0.06% at $52.25
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $48.41 (+4.00%), unchanged
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$64.1 million
Cumulative net flows: $40.00 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.170 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $19 million
Cumulative net flows: $3.18 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.795 million.
Overnight Flows
Month-to-date data on the leading bridged netflows by network indicates a significant influx of capital into the Base network this month.
This layer-2 blockchain has recorded net inflows of $314 million, which is more than double the inflow of $115 million for the second-leading Arbitrum.
Inflows into Solana have decreased due to liquidity pressures stemming from various high-profile celebrity memecoin launches over the previous month.
While You Were Sleeping
LIBRA Memecoin Scandal Resulted in $251M Losses for Investors, Research Indicates (CoinDesk): Nansen’s on-chain analysts reveal that 86% of traders who dealt with the LIBRA token incurred losses, totaling $251 million, while the few winners collectively profited $180 million.
Hong Kong to Broaden Its Virtual Assets Market (The Standard): At the Consensus Hong Kong event, SFC CEO Julia Leung introduced ASPIRe—a 12-point strategy aimed at addressing market imbalances through enhanced licensing, custody, token frameworks, derivatives trading, and margin lending for professional investors.
MANTRA Launches Initiative for Startups in Real-World Asset Tokenization Supported by Google Cloud (CoinDesk): The layer-1 blockchain MANTRA’s RWAccelerator assists startups focused on tokenizing real-world assets by offering mentorship, along with technical support and cloud credits from Google.
China Is Anticipated to Lower Its Benchmark Policy Rate Next Month (CNBC): The central bank of China maintained its key lending rates steady on Thursday, raising expectations for a policy easing in March.
Bank of England’s Gold Traders Deal With Trump-Driven Frenzy (Bloomberg): Speculation regarding potential U.S. tariffs has compelled a small team at the BoE to extract 12.5 kg of gold bars as traders exploit price disparities between London spot and U.S. futures.
‘Stagflation’ Concerns Linger in U.S. Markets Despite Trump’s Pro-Growth Policies (Reuters): Although investors remain generally optimistic about U.S. stocks, there are worries that the president’s new tariff actions may increase prices and hinder economic growth.
In the Ether
