By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless stated otherwise)
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently hovering around its 200-day average of $84,000 following the exit of the infamous Hyperliquid whale from its multimillion-dollar short BTC position. Smaller cryptocurrencies such as CAKE, TKX, OKB, and ATOM have also fueled market optimism with their impressive performances.
The SUI token has had difficulty maintaining the momentum from Monday’s 6% surge, a rise that was prompted by ETF filings with the SEC from asset managers, illustrating an increasing institutional interest in the broader cryptocurrency market.
Although some analysts have proclaimed the bitcoin bull run to be over, expressing skepticism about the longevity of the recent rebound, data suggests otherwise, highlighting a reduction in the ETF-driven selling pressure.
On Monday, U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs saw an influx of $275 million in investor funds, building on Friday’s $41 million increase. This marks the first consecutive inflows since February 7, according to data from Farside Investors.
“This information supports the narrative that ETF-driven selling pressure is diminishing,” commented Valentin Fournier, an analyst at BRN. “If this trend persists, we could witness a gradual increase in inflows, which would further bolster bitcoin’s price.”
The Federal Reserve’s rate decision scheduled for Wednesday could introduce volatility into the crypto market, with a dovish statement potentially encouraging more risk-taking.
“After the FOMC, bitcoin is anticipated to trade within the $80,000 to $86,000 range with 80% confidence, while ethereum is expected to fluctuate between $1,800 and $2,100 at the same confidence level,” stated Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research. “These ranges reflect potential movements linked to macroeconomic signals, investor sentiment, and overall financial conditions.”
In traditional markets, European stocks saw a slight uptick ahead of a German parliamentary vote concerning historic debt reforms. Gold prices remained steady above $3,000 per ounce, with BlackRock asserting that gold is a more effective diversifier compared to Treasury notes in the current macroeconomic landscape.
Meanwhile, futures associated with the Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Dow were trading flat to negative following reports that a Trump-Putin call regarding the Ukraine peace deal is scheduled between 13:00 and 15:00 GMT. Stay vigilant!
What to Watch
Crypto:
March 18: Zano (ZANO) hard fork network upgrade; this introduces “ETH Signature support for off-chain signing and asset operations.”
March 20: Pascal hard fork network upgrade launches on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) mainnet.
March 21, 1:00 p.m.: The SEC’s Crypto Task Force will host a publicly accessible roundtable addressing the definition of a security.
March 24 (before market open): Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) becomes part of the S&P SmallCap 600 index.
March 24, 11:00 a.m.: Bugis network upgrade goes live on the Enjin Matrixchain mainnet.
March 25: Chromia (CHR) mainnet will witness the Mimir upgrade.
Macro
March 18, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada will release February consumer price index (CPI) data.
Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.4%
Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.1%
Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 0.1%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.1% vs. Prev. 1.9%
March 18, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau will issue February residential construction data.
Housing Starts Est. 1.38M vs. Prev. 1.366M
March 18, 11:00 p.m.: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) will provide its monetary policy statement.
Interest Rate Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. 0.5%
March 19, 6:00 a.m.: Eurostat will publish the (final) February eurozone consumer price index (CPI) data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.7%
Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. -0.3%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 2.5%
March 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Reserve will announce its interest rate decision, followed by a live-streamed FOMC press conference 30 minutes later.
Fed Funds Interest Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
March 19, 3:00 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census will release GDP data.
Full Year GDP Growth (2024) Prev. -1.6%
GDP Growth Rate QoQ (Q4) Prev. 3.9%
GDP Growth Rate YoY(Q4) Est. 1.7% vs. Prev. -2.1%
March 19, 5:30 p.m.: The Central Bank of Brazil will announce its interest rate decision.
Selic Rate Est. 14.25% vs. Prev. 13.25%
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
March 27: KULR Technology Group (KULR), post-market
March 28: Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY), pre-market
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Arbitrum DAO is currently voting on registering the “Sky Custom Gateway contracts” in the “Router contracts” which will allow users to bridge USDS and sUSDS via the official Arbitrum Bridge UI.
Frax DAO is conducting a vote on introducing the WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX) as an on-chain reserve for Frax USD.
March 18, 8 a.m.: Binance will conduct an AMA session with VP of Product Jeff Li and Binance Angel Victor Balaban.
March 18, 9 a.m.: NEAR Protocol will hold a governance talk session.
March 21, 11:30 a.m.: Flare will host an X Spaces session on Flare 2.0.
Unlocks
March 21: Immutable (IMX) will unlock 1.39% of its circulating supply, valued at $13.96 million.
March 23: Metars Genesis (MRS) will unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply, worth $242.9 million.
March 31: Optimism (OP) will unlock 1.93% of its circulating supply, valued at $27.47 million.
April 1: Sui (SUI) will unlock 2.03% of its circulating supply, worth $147.65 million.
April 3: Wormhole (W) will unlock 47.7% of its circulating supply, worth $121.48 million.
April 7: Kaspa (KAS) will unlock 0.59% of its circulating supply, valued at $11.28 million.
Token Listings
March 18: Jupiter (JUP) will be listed on Arkham.
March 18: Paws (PAWS) will be listed on Bybit.
March 18: Slingshot (SLING) will be listed on KuCoin.
March 19: Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) and DuckChain (DUCK) will be listed on Kraken.
March 31: Binance will delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.
Conferences
CoinDesk’s Consensus will be held in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK to receive a 15% discount on passes.
Day 1 of 3: Digital Asset Summit 2025 (New York)
Day 1 of 3: Fintech Americas Miami 2025
March 19-20: Next Block Expo (Warsaw)
March 24-26: Merge Buenos Aires
March 25-26: PAY360 2025 (London)
March 25-27: Mining Disrupt (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
March 26: Crypto Assets Conference (Frankfurt)
March 26: DC Blockchain Summit 2025 (Washington)
March 26-28: Real World Crypto Symposium 2025 (Sofia, Bulgaria)
March 27: Building Blocks (Tel Aviv)
March 27: Digital Euro Conference 2025 (Frankfurt)
March 27: WIKI Finance EXPO Hong Kong 2025
March 27-28: Money Motion 2025 (Zagreb, Croatia)
March 28: Solana APEX (Cape Town)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
Hackers have attacked BNB Chain’s Four.meme launch platform, exploiting new meme tokens to drain liquidity by circumventing listing restrictions and creating unauthorized trading pairs on PancakeSwap, securing funds around 04:00 GMT.
This attack occurred just before the planned token launches by Four.meme, where the hackers purchased small quantities of tokens prior to their launch, added liquidity to PancakeSwap pairs, and subsequently executed rug pulls, primarily against popular tokens such as MubaraKing (87.90 BNB stolen) and others like EDDY and Cocoro.
Four.meme has halted new token launches and has promised to compensate affected users, although no vulnerabilities were discovered within their smart contracts. Analyst Chaofan Shou noted that leaked early transactions enabled the hacker’s front-running.
The attack took advantage of a flawed token function that allowed transfers during the bonding curve stage, a recurring flaw that could potentially affect all Four.meme tokens, despite only a few being targeted due to their popularity.
Derivatives Positioning
Open interest in ETH, LTC, XRP, and SOL perpetual futures saw an increase in the last 24 hours alongside a flat-to-negative cumulative volume delta (CVD), indicating net selling in the market.
SOL, ADA, and DOGE have also experienced negative funding rates.
Open interest and basis in BTC and ETH CME futures remain low at recent lows, suggesting a lack of confidence among institutions to allocate capital.
Deribit’s BTC and ETH options continue to show put skews for expiries extending to the end of April.
Market Movements:
BTC is down 1.62% from 4 p.m. ET Monday, currently priced at $82,676.40 (24hrs: -0.81%)
ETH has declined by 2.29% to $1,892.55 (24hrs: -1.1%)
CoinDesk 20 index is down 2.25% at 2,582.56 (24hrs: -1.46%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate remains unchanged at 2.96%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0036% (annualized at 3.89%) on Binance
DXY remains stable at 103.28
Gold has increased by 0.76% to $3,020.72/oz
Silver has risen by 0.82% to $34.07/oz
Nikkei 225 finished up +1.2% at 37,845.42
Hang Seng closed +2.46% at 24,740.57
FTSE is up 0.44% at 8,715.59
Euro Stoxx 50 increased by 0.85% to 5,491.99
DJIA ended Monday up +0.85% at 41,841.63
S&P 500 concluded +0.64% at 5,675.12
Nasdaq finished +0.31% at 17,808.66
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.94% at 24,785.11
S&P 40 Latin America rose by +1.76% to 2,475.69
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate fell by 1 bp to 4.31%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.29% at 5,715.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.38% at 19,963.00
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.27% at 42,112.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.66 (-0.03%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02285 (-0.31%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 805 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $47.08
Total Fees: 4.68 BTC / $386,699
CME Futures Open Interest: 151,030 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 27 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.68%
Technical Analysis
The dollar index’s (DXY) decline continues, breaching the crucial 61.8% Fibonacci retracement support, a favorable development for risk assets.
This breakthrough has revealed the next support level at 102.32, coinciding with the 78.6% Fibonacci level.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed Monday at $294.27 (-1.08%), down 1.54% at $289.75 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $188.96 (+3.19%), down 1.55% at $186.21
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.35 (-3.5%)
Marathon Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.97 (-1.59%), down 1.39% at $12.79
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.76 (-0.77%), down 1.16% at $7.67
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.76 (-0.57%), down 0.8% at $8.69
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.12 (+1.88%), down 1.23% at $8.02
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $15.37 (+0.46%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $36.03 (+4.89%), up 2.19% at $36.82
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $32.35 (+15.33%), unchanged in pre-market
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $274.6 million
Cumulative net flows: $35.67 billion
Total BTC holdings: approximately 1,120 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: -$7.3 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.53 billion
Total ETH holdings: approximately 3.509 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Pump.fun is a well-known Solana-based marketplace utilized for the creation and distribution of tokens, primarily memecoins.
The daily token deployment activity has diminished to 29,475 transactions on Monday, a significant drop from 71,738 on January 23.
This trend indicates that the broader market downturn has cooled speculative activities.
While You Were Sleeping
According to CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju, Bitcoin’s Bull Market Cycle has concluded: He predicts a bearish or sideways price action for the next 6-12 months due to dwindling market liquidity, suggesting BTC could decline to $63,000.
Metaplanet Continues to Issue Bonds for Bitcoin Acquisitions (CoinDesk): The Japanese firm issued 2 billion yen ($13.4 million) in zero-interest bonds, of which a portion will be used to purchase 150 BTC for $12.5 million.
Crypto OnChain Options Platform Derive Highlights Possible Bitcoin Storm (CoinDesk): Derive warns that the calm in the market may not last, citing uncertainties surrounding Ukraine’s ceasefire and potential regulatory changes under the Trump administration as catalysts for volatility.
German Bonds Dip Ahead of Key Vote on Major Spending Package (Bloomberg): German bond yields have risen ahead of Tuesday’s parliamentary vote on a significant spending plan due to concerns about rising debt issuance and inflation risks.
Trump Administration Explored Simplified Reciprocal Tariffs Plan (The Wall Street Journal): Trump officials have reconsidered a streamlined three-tier system for reciprocal tariffs before choosing an individualized approach, with the finalized plan expected by April 2 alongside new industry-specific tariffs.
Dutch Politician Warns That Europe’s Defense Spending Spree May Trigger Debt Crisis (Financial Times): Pieter Omtzigt cautions that the EU’s €800 billion ($875 billion) defense initiative could lead to unsustainable debt levels and potentially ignite another eurozone sovereign-debt crisis.
In the Ether
