December Weekly Update #2

December 2nd to 8th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 15,400 BTC for $1.5B at $95,976 per BTC
▫️ BTC broke $100K & price fluctuations led to over $1B in liquidations over 24 hours on Thursday
▫️ Trump nominated Paul Atkins as SEC Chair & named former PayPal COO David Sacks as White House AI & Crypto Czar
▫️ Coinbase announced launch of Apple Pay crypto purchases
▫️ The Czech Republic decided to exempt BTC holdings over 3 years from capital gains tax
▫️ BTC mining company MARA proposed $700M convertible senior note offering to buy more BTC
▫️ Former Celsius CEO Mashinsky plead guilty in US fraud case
▫️ Coinbase obtained letters revealing U.S. regulator FDIC told banks to avoid crypto companies
▫️ Grayscale filed for Solana ETF with NYSE
▫️ US govt moved $1.9B worth of BTC to Coinbase wallets & Mt. Gox moved $2.4B in BTC to unknown address
▫️ November revealed as record month for U.S. spot BTC ETFs as net inflows hit $6.1B
▫️ Pudgy Penguins announced release of PENGU token
▫️ Total stablecoin value reached new ATH at just under $200B
▫️ The combined on-chain DEX volume across 23 chains reached an ATH of $16.8B using the seven-day moving average
▫️ Solana’s SDK suffered breach resulting in compromised private keys & stolen funds

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $103,551
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $94,035

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $4,089
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,555

December 9nd to 15th Upcoming Events:

▪️ December 9 - BGB, $15M token unlock
▪️ December 10 - EIGEN, $6M token unlock
▪️ December 11 - ENA, $13M token unlock
▪️ December 11- APT, $162M token unlock
▪️ December 11 - US Inflation Announcement
▪️ December 15 - STRK, $41M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

After a prolonged period of testing, BTC finally crossed $100k this week, stimulating positive sentiment & generating significant interest in the future of both BTC & the digital asset space in general. Large buys by Microstrategy & MARA in addition to “crypto-friendly” announcements by the US govt regarding key recruitment positions possibly provided the impetus for the move up to $103k.

Digital asset investment products saw the largest weekly inflows ever with $3.85B flowing in. BTC saw inflows of $2.5B setting a new record while ETH saw its largest weekly inflows ever worth $1.2B. The positive sentiment also bled into DeFi with DEX trading volumes reaching new highs & the total value locked (TVL) for lending protocols reaching a new ATH of $54B.
BTC making the mainstream news will result in much stronger institutional interest in the mid to long term but may also result in both retail & institutions FOMO buying up assets in the week ahead. However, bears have been warning of a pullback for weeks, & it will be worth keeping an eye on which digital assets show strong price action over the week ahead.

December Weekly Update #3

December 9th to 15th Recap:

▫️ Early week price fluctuations led to over $1.7B in liquidations over 24 hours on Monday
▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 21,550 BTC for $2.1B at $98,783 per BTC
▫️ Texas House of Reps introduced bill to establish a strategic BTC reserve
▫️ BTC mining company MARA Holdings purchased 11,774 BTC for $1.1B at $96,000 per BTC
▫️ Vancouver City Council passed motion to become a “Bitcoin-friendly city” & explore possible municipal use
▫️ Nasdaq announced Microstrategy to join Nasdaq 100 & QQQ ETF
▫️ Tether’s USDT recognized as Accepted Virtual Asset in Abu Dhabi Global Market
▫️ Riot Platforms proposed $500M convertible senior note offering to buy more BTC & purchased 5,117 BTC for $510M at an average price of $99,669 per BTC
▫️ Trump’s World Liberty Financial began purchasing tokens including ETH, LINK, AAVE, & ENA
▫️ Avalanche (AVAX) raised $250M From Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, & others
▫️ Total stablecoin market cap hit $200B
▫️ Daily active users in crypto hit a record high of 18.7M in early December
▫️ Grayscale launched Optimism & Lido DAO Trusts

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $104,847
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $94,588

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $4,002
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,530

December 16th to 22nd Upcoming Events:

▪️ December 17 - APE, $24.5M token unlock
▪️ December 17 - EIGEN, $7M token unlock
▪️ December 17 - Fuel Network token sale on Impossible Finance
▪️ December 18 - Fed rate cut announcement
▪️ December 18 - ENA, $15M token unlock
▪️ December 18 - QAI, $22M token unlock
▪️ December 20 - ADA, $20M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

While most global equity markets traded down, crypto continued its strong upward momentum with BTC touching $105k over the weekend & trading at 5% up WoW at the time of writing. Microstrategy, MARA, & Riot Platforms led BTC corporate treasury buys while the Texas House bill introduction highlighted current positive developments regarding national & federal treasuries acquiring BTC.

The positive sentiment saw digital asset investment products attract inflows totalling $3.2B with BTC attracting inflows of $2B while ETH attracted inflows worth $1B. ETH products saw their 7th consecutive week of inflows while all digital asset investment products hit a 10th consecutive week of inflows. With 2024 drawing to a close, total inflows currently stand at $44.5B.
This week sees the Fed meet for the last time this year on December 18 with consensus seemingly forming around a 25 bps rate cut, however, the Fed Chair's future outlook & possible hints at either a continuation of or a stop to rate cuts may lead to short term volatility & markets swinging either up or down.

December Weekly Update #4

December 16th to 22nd Recap:

▫️ BTC hit $108k as following price drop led to over $1B in liquidations over 24 hours on Thursday
▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 15,350 BTC for $1.5B at $100,386 per BTC
▫️ Rumble announced $775M strategic investment from Tether
▫️ Ohio Congressman proposed the Ohio Bitcoin Reserve Act to create a state-backed BTC reserve
▫️ BTC mining company MARA Holdings purchased 15,574 BTC for $1.53B at $98,529 per BTC
▫️ SEC approved 1st spot BTC & ETH combo ETFs from Hashdex & Franklin Templeton
▫️ FTX announced January 3, 2025 date for its Chapter 11 plan of reorganization
▫️ Tether announced plans to launch AI platform in Q1 2025 as USDT market cap hit new ATH of $135B
▫️ Assets Under Management (AUM) of BTC ETFs in the U.S. surpassed gold ETFs as percentage of BTC market cap to gold reached new ATH of 14%
▫️ Pudgy Penguins launched $1.5B PENGU token airdrop on SOL with claims open for 88 days
▫️ Kraken officially launched Ink network as part of Optimism Superchain
▫️ Layer 2s reached a new ATH in stablecoin TVL of close to $12B
▫️ Layer-2 network Fuel announced plan to airdrop 10% of FUEL token supply to 200K wallets
▫️ Trump’s World Liberty Financial swapped cbBTC for WBTC after Justin Sun joined as adviser
▫️ Avalanche (AVAX) blockchain’s largest-ever upgrade 'Avalanche9000' went live

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $108,364
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $92,422

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $4,056
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,125

December 23rd to 29th Upcoming Events:

▪️ December 25 - ENA, $13.4M token unlock
▪️ December 26 - ADA, $16.5M token unlock
▪️ December 27 - IMX, $33.5M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

A volatile week in crypto saw BTC start off strongly by hitting an ATH of $108,364 before dropping to $95k & ending the week around 7% down. Globally, digital asset investment products saw inflows totalling $308M. However, Thursday brought the largest single day of outflows totalling $576M, with total outflows over the final 48 hours of the week hitting $1B.

US ETF flows generally tracked asset price movements & BTC ETFs ended the week with $446M in inflows while ETH ETFs gathered $62M despite the late sell-offs. One of the major causes of the volatility was the Fed funds rate announcement & Chair Powell's future outlook. As we mentioned last week the quarter-point cut was not a surprise but the Fed Chair's commentary around 'only' 2 further cuts in 2025 & shooting down the idea of a BTC strategic reserve in the near-term stimulated the sell-off.

As the year comes to a close, fewer traditional market trading days in the holiday week ahead means lower trading volumes which can lead to volatile swings in either direction in tradfi & crypto. While the medium term outlook remains bullish, the market could lag or continue to sell off with some analysts earmarking Trump’s official inauguration on January 20 as a potential market benchmark.

December Weekly Update #5

December 23rd to 29th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 5,262 BTC for $561M at $106,662 per BTC
▫️ Donald Trump appointed Bo Hines as executive director of the "Crypto Council" advisory group
▫️ Bitwise filed for a Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF with the SEC
▫️ El Salvador purchased a further 11 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 5,994.77 BTC
▫️ BTC broke past $2T & hit a new ATH for monthly trading volume
▫️ Coinbase reached a new ATH of $119B in weekly trading volume, averaging almost $20B daily
▫️ Solana hit 72.8m daily transactions on December 23, setting a new record
▫️ North Korean hackers stole a record $1.34B in crypto over 2024, accounting for 61% of all crypto thefts this year
▫️ The Montenegrin Minister of Justice signed a decision to extradite Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon to the U.S.
▫️ Jupiter DEX announced plan to distribute 700 million tokens in January
▫️ Close to $15B revealed to have been distributed through airdrops over 2024
▫️ Crypto fundraising hit a yearly high of $3B in December

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $99, 800
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $92,937

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,535
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,305

December 30th to January 5th Upcoming Events:

▪️ December 31 - OP, $58M token unlock
▪️ January 1 - SUI, $275M token unlock
▪️ January 1 - ZETA, $31.4 M token unlock
▪️ January 1 - DYDX, $12.75M token unlock
▪️ January 1 - ENA, $12.65M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Bears are starting to take control & BTC is down 2% WoW (at time of writing) after a week where US BTC ETFs recorded $378M in outflows. Despite the sell offs, ETH maintained its recent strong performances with $349M flowing into US ETFs, however, ETH opened & closed the week trading at around $3,300. The past week also saw several innovative BTC filings targeted at institutional investors including Strive & REX Shares Bitcoin corporate Treasury holders ETF & ProShares' Bitcoin-hedged equity index ETF.

These filings illustrate the sustained confidence in digital assets in general & BTC specifically as a mainstream asset class. However, another shortened trading week will again mean lower volumes i.e. we will likely see a couple of days with global trading volumes sub $100B which have been rare since Trump's election win on Nov 6th. As stated last week, these low volumes can lead to volatile swings in either direction in both digital & traditional asset markets.

All in all, a massive year for crypto comes to an end with major milestones including BTC reaching $100k, crypto ETFs gaining record-breaking adoption, governments adopting favourable crypto regulations, & stablecoins surfacing as crypto’s “killer use-case". Despite all this, the beginning of 2025 may see depressed prices as both individuals & institutions look to sell for tax purposes & the recent exuberance may remain subdued until funds from the $16B FTX creditor repayments move back into the market & Trump’s official inauguration on January 20.

January Weekly Update #1

December 30th to January 5th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 2,138 BTC for $209M at $97,837 per BTC
▫️ Tether added 7,629 BTC ($700M) to reserve address, & brought total holdings to $7.7B
▫️ The IRS delayed the FIFO crypto tax reporting requirements until Dec 2025
▫️ The FTX payout plan officially went into effect on Jan. 3, with creditor repayments set to begin within 60 days
▫️ MicroStrategy announced plan to raise up to $2B through public offerings of perpetual preferred stock as part of its 21/21 Plan to acquire more BTC
▫️ BlackRock's spot BTC ETF, IBIT, hit $50B in 11 months, & matched the combined AUM of 50+ Euro ETFs built over 2 decades
▫️ Monthly volume on DEXs hit a record high of $462B in December
▫️ Ethereum L2s reached a new ATH of 10.61M active addresses
▫️ At least 60 billionaires worldwide were revealed to hold BTC
▫️ Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon appeared in Manhattan court & pleaded not guilty to eight felony charges
▫️ BTC's hash rate hit a new ATH, surpassing 800 EH/s or 800 quintillion hashes per second

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $99,695
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $92,173

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,664
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,312

January 6th to 12th Upcoming Events:

▪️ January 8 - ENA, $16M token unlock
▪️ January 9 - MOVE, $52M token unlock
▪️ January 10 - US unemployment rate announcement
▪️ January 11 - APT, $112M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

After last week’s drawdown, the price of BTC recovered to trade 4% up WoW (at time of writing) pushed up by US BTC ETFs recording $900M in inflows alone on Friday. This massive inflow helped to offset some earlier volatility which saw Blackrock’s IBIT experience a record net outflow of $331M on Thursday.

ETH ETFs broke their 5 week streak of net inflows, recording $38M in outflows (ETH trading 8% up WoW), & after a couple of shortened trading weeks, the upcoming week should see daily trading volumes revert back to normal. However, a surprise on the US unemployment rate announcement on Jan 10th could cause volatility but with no other near-term catalysts a neutral trading outlook for the week ahead seems likely.

January Weekly Update #2

January 6th to 12th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 1,070 BTC for $101M at $94,004 per BTC
▫️ Spot BTC ETFs accumulated 51.5k BTC in Dec 2024, nearly 3x the 13,850 BTC produced by crypto miners as 859,454 BTC was bought by ETFs & public companies in 2024
▫️ AI revealed as best performing sector for 2024 with 2,939.8% YTD return, followed by memecoins with 2,185.1% returns, & RWA with 819.5%
▫️ Over $650M liquidated over 24 hours as BTC fell from $101.8k to $95.8k on Tuesday
▫️ US DOJ cleared to sell $6.5B of seized Silk Road BTC
▫️ Bhutan SAR announced plan to adopt BTC, ETH & BNB as part of its strategic reserves
▫️ The Ethereum network experienced outflows of $43.5B over 2024, with a $7.7B net outflow
▫️ MANTRA blockchain to tokenize $1B of real-world assets for UAE-based property firm DAMAC
▫️ Bitfinex received Digital Asset Service Provider licence & relocated derivatives services to El Salvador
▫️ UK exempted crypto staking from collective investment scheme rules
▫️ Sol Strategies took out $25M credit line to invest in SOL tokens & staking operations & announced CAD $27.5M private placement with ParaFi Capital
▫️ Ethereum network accounted for over 55% of TVL across all chains in 2024
▫️ Monthly Base volume on Uniswap Protocol hit a new ATH of $15.65B
▫️ ETH L2 project Movement Labs closed $100M Series B funding round
▫️ 0G Foundation raised $30M selling AI nodes with node operators receiving up to 15% of the 0G token supply for 3 years

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $102,215
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $91,314

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,712
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,180

January 13th to 19th Upcoming Events:

▪️ January 15 - STRK, $27M token unlock
▪️ January 15 - ENA, $11M token unlock
▪️ January 15 - SEI, $21M token unlock
▪️ January 14 - Nosana Mainnet Launch
▪️ January 15 - US Inflation announcement
▪️ January 16 - ARB, $66M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

The past week brought significant price volatility for BTC, & while we highlighted the US unemployment rate as an announcement to keep an eye on, the strong US services sector reading on Tuesday preceded Friday January 10th's strong jobs report. This duo of macro indicators turned out stronger than expected & when paired with news that the US DOJ could potentially sell $6.5B in seized Silk Road BTC the market understandably suffered a down week.

US BTC ETFs ended the week net positive with $313M in inflows while ETH ETFs recorded outflows of $186M. Globally, BTC investment products saw inflows totalling $214M with large outflows later in the week, while ETH recorded $256M in outflows.

Looking forward, with Trump's January 20th inauguration fast approaching, alongside the long awaited stepping down of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the US inflation announcement on January 15th presents an additional catalyst for possible market volatility in the week ahead. However, a higher than expected reading may result in sharp downwards moves as investors start to doubt the likelihood of more than 2 rate cuts this year.

January Weekly Update #3

January 13th to 19th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 2,530 BTC for $243M at $95,972 per BTC
▫️ $TRUMP & $MELANIA meme coins launched ahead of inauguration
▫️ US Govt stated 120k seized BTC from 2016 Bitfinex hack worth $4B should be returned to Bitfinex
▫️ SEC charged Digital Currency Group & sanctioned Genesis CEO Michael Moro for misleading investors
▫️ Oklahoma Rep proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act for state to invest in BTC
▫️ Canary Capital filed for a LTC ETF
▫️ Sony launched Soneium public blockchain platform on mainnet
▫️ Vitalik Buterin detailed 'large changes' to Ethereum Foundation leadership as ETH developers set Pectra mainnet upgrade for March
▫️ Phantom Wallet raised $150M at $3B valuation in Series C funding round
▫️ MoonPay purchased buy Solana crypto payment processor Helio for $175M
▫️ Tether received Digital Asset Service Provider licence & announced relocation to El Salvador
▫️ Coinbase launched DeFi-backed BTC loans for US users via Morpho
▫️ Swiss state-owned bank PostFinance expanded into ETH staking
▫️ Orbiter Finance announced OBT token launch & airdrop details
▫️ L2s crossed $500B in all-time volume on Uniswap
▫️ Sigma Capital unveiled $100M fund to accelerate Web3 innovations

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $106,180
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $90,815

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,512
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,015

January 20th to 26th Upcoming Events:

▪️ US President Trump’s Inauguration
▪️ January 20 - IMX, $28M token unlock
▪️ January 21 - FTN, $77M token unlock
▪️ January 22 - ENA, $11M token unlock
▪️ January 24 - IMX, $28M token unlock
▪️ January 25 - JUP, $657M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

The week leading up to Trump's inauguration did not disappoint with a host of announcements and rumors sending crypto markets flying. US Bitcoin ETFs collected a whooping $1.8B while Ethereum ETFs netted $212M with large flows recorded following a softer than expected US inflation announcement on Wednesday. With Bitcoin already crossing $105k during the week, Trump's memecoin launch during the inaugural crypto ball caused further frenzy in the market and a volatile weekend which resulted in the memecoin setting records on its way to a $15B market cap (based on circulating supply).

The beginning of next week is the largest catalyst the crypto world has been awaiting since the Nov 6 election, Trump's inauguration. Expect volatility on Monday based on any crypto related "Day One executive orders" and announcements during the week including a potential crypto council to advise Congress on much-needed regulatory clarity.

January Weekly Update #4

January 20th to 26th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 11,000 BTC for $1.1B at $101,191 per BTC
▫️ Bitcoin ETFs revealed to hold over 1,100,000 BTC around 5.7% of current supply
▫️ Acting SEC Chairman Uyeda announced formation of new crypto task force
▫️ Senator Lummis announced new role as Chair of the Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee
▫️ SEC rescinded crypto accounting guidance SAB 121
▫️ US Appeals Court lifted OFAC sanction against Tornado Cash
▫️ Utah introduced a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill
▫️ Bitwise filed for Doge ETF in Delaware
▫️ Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht
▫️ White House crypto czar David Sacks stated NFTs & memecoins are collectibles, not securities
▫️ CME leaked potential XRP & SOL futures launch on February 10 after regulatory review
▫️ Rex filed for Doge, Bonk, & Trump ETFs
▫️ Circle acquired $1.3B tokenized RWZ firm Hashnote
▫️ Solana hit ATHs for daily tx fees ($50M), DEX volume ($39.2B), REV ($56.5M), TVL ($10B) & stablecoin supply ($10B)
▫️ Ethereum experienced second largest drawdown of staked ETH from ATH since 2023 Shapella upgrade
▫️ Base hit an ATH of $2.9B DEX volume, driven by $1.3B in ETH-USD volume
▫️ Binance Labs rebranded to YZi Labs
▫️ Aave hit new ATH for TVL in ETH terms

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $108,168
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $99,897

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,420
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,173

January 27th to February 2nd Upcoming Events:

▪️ January 29 - US Fed & Bank of Canada Interest Rate announcements
▪️ January 29 - Jupiter Exchange Jupuary Airdrop claim goes live at 15:30 UTC
▪️ January 29 - TRIBL, $54M token unlock
▪️ January 31 - OP, $45M token unlock
▪️ February 1 - SUI, $243M token unlock
▪️ February 1 - ZETA, $19M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Arguably one of the most impactful weeks politically speaking in crypto's history just ended which included Trump being inaugurated & signing the first crypto executive order. The establishment of a new crypto working group with clear near-term deadlines & the repealing of SAB 121 are both highly important steps in bringing much-needed regulatory clarity in the US.

Moreover, the controversial TRUMP token brought a spike in Solana network usage with stablecoin TVL crossing $10B and daily transaction fees hitting $50M as people (many new market entrants) bought USDC to gain access to TRUMP token via the highest traded USDC pair. Unsurprisingly even with US markets closed on Monday, domestic ETFs recorded strong inflows across the week with $1.75B flowing into BTC ETFs & $139M into ETH ETfs.

Towards the end of the week, the Chinese AI company Deepseek announced a powerful AI which was trained for significantly less when compared to its US counterparts. This spooked the markets & due to the AI fueled rally in traditional assets over the past two years, both crypto & traditional markets immediately began trading lower with the full impact of this announcement to be seen in the week ahead. Lastly, while political factors took the spotlight in the previous week it will be worth monitoring the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday particularly around the Fed Chair's overall outlook for 2025.

February Weekly Update #1

January 27th to February 2nd Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired an additional 10,107 BTC for $1.1B at $105,596 per BTC
▫️ Japanese hotel investor Metaplanet announced $745M raise to buy BTC
▫️ SEC approved Bitwise combined Spot BTC & ETH ETF
▫️ Trump Media launched Truth.Fi fintech platform with plans to invest $250M into SMAs, ETFs & crypto
▫️ Tether hit $13B in profits for 2024 & new ATHs in U.S. Treasury holdings
▫️ Grayscale filed for DOGE ETF with NYSE
▫️ 21Shares filed for DOT Trust
▫️ Bitwise filed for Doge ETF in Delaware
▫️ $730B AUM investment firm Apollo launched tokenized private credit fund on SOL, Ink, & ETH
▫️ Sei Foundation launched $65M DeSci venture fund Sapien Capital
▫️ Pantera & Jump led $20M round valuing Humanity Protocol at $1.1B
▫️ CZ invested $16M in token airdrop service Sign
▫️ Coinbase Derivatives filed with CFTC to list SOL & HBAR Futures
▫️ Kraken brought back crypto staking for U.S. customers
▫️ Coinbase revealed crypto mobile wallet users hit an ATH of 36M in Q4, 2024
▫️ The market reached a new high of over 36.4M crypto tokens, projected to hit 100M tokens by end of 2025
▫️ DEX trading hit a new ATH with 20.5% of all spot CEX volume
▫️ Ethereum Layer 2s reached a new ATH in throughput, with Base in 1st place

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $106,048
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $98,301

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,429
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,051

February 3rd to 9th Upcoming Events:

▪️ February 3 - Nillion Mainnet Launch
▪️ February 7 - US Unemployment Report
▪️ February 5 - XDC, $81M token unlock
▪️ February 5 - KAS, $17M token unlock
▪️ February 9 - MOVE, $31M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Donald Trump announcing tariffs on imports from Canada, China, & Mexico over the weekend spooked the market enough to cause a 5.9% drop in the total crypto market cap WoW. The weekend proved to be a bloodbath and BTC dipped to $95k and looked set to continue dropping as Sunday came to an end.

Considering global equity futures are trading 1-2% down & BTC has shown a fairly strong correlation (~0.6 over the past 90 days) the magnitude of the drawdown in crypto is somewhat unsurprising.

Prior to the White House announcement, US BTC ETFs experienced $560M in inflows with ETH ETFs experiencing $45M in outflows.

Looking forward, more trade war related announcements in the week ahead could cause further volatility, however, if this weekend's announcements are not followed up with further substantial developments, the overarching favorable crypto macro backdrop could see markets recover sharply & trend upwards towards recovery in the coming week.

February Weekly Update #2

February 3rd to 9th Recap:

▫️ Over $2B in liquidations on Monday, Bybit CEO estimated up to $10B in liquidations
▫️ VanEck revealed around $196B worth of BTC is now held by ETFs, countries, public & private companies
▫️ Stripe closed its $1.1B purchase of stablecoin platform Bridge Network
▫️ SEC acknowledged previously rejected Solana ETF 19b-4 filing
▫️ Wisdomtree, Bitwise, 21Shares, & Canary filed for XRP ETF with CBOE
▫️ FTX confirmed repayments to start from February 18 for claims under $50k
▫️ Sol Strategies increased SOL holdings to 190,000 SOL with latest SOL purchase
▫️ CFTC announced crypto CEO forum with participants including Circle, Coinbase, Crypto com & Ripple
▫️ SEC announced scale back of crypto enforcement efforts
▫️ Kraken secured EU MiFID license, enabling launch of regulated derivatives offering
▫️ TON Foundation’s Steve Yun launched $100M VC fund TVM Ventures
▫️ 86% of all onchain real world assets revealed to be on ETH & ETH L2s
▫️ Pumpdotfun shown to account for over 50% of all monthly Solana DEX transactions
▫️ Monthly Uniswap swap volume on Base hit new ATH well over $15B
▫️ Ethereum supply climbed to pre-Merge upgrade levels at around 120.5M ETH; analysts point to Dencun 'blob' update
▫️ Ethereum increased gas limit for the first time since migration to Proof of Stake
▫️ Monthly DEX volume a new ATH of $562.7B in January 2025

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $102,120
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $94,855

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,892
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,554

February 10th to 16th Upcoming Events:

February 12 - US Inflation Announcement
February 14 - SAND, $81M token unlock
February 15 - STRK, $15M token unlock
February 15 - SEI, $13M token unlock
February 16 - AVAX, $42M token unlock
February 16 - ARB, $44M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

As mentioned last week, focus shifted towards whether markets would recover after the US announced global trade tariffs. BTC displayed its volatility, opening up the week trading above $100k before sliding down to $94k.This was partly stimulated by liquidations somewhere in the region of $2B to $6B on Monday which saw billions worth of long positions being taken out.

The downtrend stimulated institutional buying with BTC seeing S$407M worth of global inflows while ETH recorded significant inflows of $793M. This helped BTC to trade at around $97k as the week ended, while digital asset investment products saw inflows totalling approximately $1.3B.

Despite the downturn, there were positive developments on the US regulatory front as SEC commissioner Pierce released the SEC's crypto roadmap & a new stablecoin bill was introduced in the house. Interestingly, while stablecoin issuance has been strong since the beginning of 2025, the past week saw $6.8B in new issuance with over two-thirds being captured by USDT & USDC.

Looking forward, price momentum in the week ahead will probably be dictated by macro news considering the coming US inflation announcement & the possibility of steel, aluminum & any additional tariffs on goods imported into the US.

February Weekly Update #3

February 10th to 16th Recap:

▫️ Strategy acquired an additional 7,633 BTC for $742.4M at $97,255 per BTC
▫️ SEC signalled path to resolving cases against Coinbase & Binance
▫️ State of Wisconsin Investment Board reported $321.5M in iShares Bitcoin ETF
▫️ BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) hit a new ATH of 77% market share in spot BTC ETF volume in January
▫️ SEC acknowledged Grayscale DOGE & XRP spot ETFs filings
▫️ BTC liquidity on U.S. exchanges increased to 2021 bull run levels, with Kraken & Coinbase in the lead
▫️ Coinbase’s 2024 Q4 revenue surged to $2.3B driven by postelection crypto rally
▫️ Robinhood reported 2024 Q4 revenue more than doubled to hit $1B
▫️ Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund disclosed $436M of BTC ETF buys in Q1
▫️ SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated “many” memecoins fall outside SEC jurisdiction
▫️ Aston Martin announced sponsorship deal with Coinbase paid entirely in USDC
▫️ Grayscale filed for Cardano ETF with the NYSE
▫️ Franklin Templeton extended $594M Money Market Fund to Solana network
▫️ Ethereum Foundation injected almost $120M worth of ETH into DeFi lending protocols
▫️ DeFi platform Legends raised $15M from a16z & Coinbase
▫️ Ordinals, Runes & BRC-20 type transactions shown to represent 30% of daily Bitcoin txs
▫️ Uniswap Labs released Unichain on mainnet
▫️ Aave's revealed to have hit a new ATH in monthly revenue of $138M in Jan
▫️ Ethereum L1 users revealed to have spent $570M in January, $420M on apps & $150M on tx fees
▫️ Ethereum devs released client software for Pectra upgrade on testnets

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $98,700
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $95,286

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,783
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,623

February 17th to 23rd Upcoming Events:

▪️ February 21 - MRS, $44M token unlock
▪️ February 21 - IMX, $18M token unlock
▪️ February 23 - MURA, $40M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

The higher than expected US inflation reading was partly responsible for minor sell-offs in the week, however, positivity was also present in the form of Trump's tariff delays. This enabled BTC to recover slightly but the overall feeling of uncertainty led to volatility across the week for the wider digital asset market.
The uncertainty was reflected in institutional behaviour as digital asset investment products saw their first significant outflows for the year with US BTC ETFs experiencing $580M in outflows while US ETH ETFs fared relatively better with $26M of outflows.

Considering the volatility in global markets across the board, crypto markets have mainly witnessed sideways movements with larger caps holding up fairly well while lower caps continue to bleed slowly.
With no significant price catalysts in the week ahead and a shorter trading week for US markets, another week of sideways price action looks likely. However, SOL holders should keep an eye on the charts with the March 1st unlock of 9.75M SOL drawing closer.

February Weekly Update #4

February 17th to 23rd Recap:

▫️ Strategy announced a $2B Convertible Senior Notes offering
▫️ Bybit hacked for over $1.4B in ETH & CEO Ben Zhou offered 10% recovery bounty
▫️ Bybit hack news led to over $500M of liquidations on Friday
▫️ Arkham Intelligence linked North Korea's Lazarus Group to ByBit exchange hack
▫️ SEC agreed to dismiss lawsuit against Coinbase
▫️ US Senate confirmed pro-crypto Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce
▫️ FTX announced next distribution record date set for April 11, 2025 with distribution on May 30, 2025
▫️ SEC voluntarily dismissed appeal in case to push 'dealer rule' on crypto/DeFi & ended investigation into OpenSea
▫️ Binance.US resumed USD services
▫️ SEC acknowledged 21Shares' proposal to permit staking on ETH ETF
▫️ Curve Finance founder raised funds at $50M token valuation for new project Yield Basis
▫️ Stablecoin supply revealed to have surpassed $215B
▫️ Monthly tx fee spend on Solana reached a new ATH of around 550M in January
▫️ Uniswap Labs released Unichain on mainnet
▫️ Galaxy data revealed 2nd highest daily amount of liquidations on Aave V3 (on ETH) since inception on Feb 3rd
▫️ The 7DMA of tx fees on ETH fell 70% to $0.77 while the median gas price averaged 1.61 GWEI
▫️ Quarterly tx volume on Base reached a new ATH close to 700M in Q4 24
▫️ Hyperliquid completed HyperEVM launch on mainnet

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $99,411
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $93,938

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,839
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,621

February 24th to March 2nd Upcoming Events:

▪️ February 26 - Nvidia earnings announcement
▪️ February 28 - OP, $33M token unlock
▪️ March 1 - SUI, $65M token unlock
▪️ March 1 - SOL, $2B FTX estate unlock
▪️ March 2 - ENA, $16M token unlock


*Nota Bene:

Despite showing signs of volatility in the week, the market appeared to be attempting to stabilize, however, things were thrown into disarray on Friday as news of the $1.4B Bybit hack began to spread, leading to an inevitable downward spiral.

Over the week, digital asset investment products saw global outflows of around $508M as uncertainty around inflation, trade tariffs, and US monetary policy persisted. The recent trend in diverging ETF flows between BTC & ETH continued as US BTC ETFs bled to the tune of $539M while ETH ETFs attracted around $13M of inflows.

Looking forward, with regards to macro, investors remain curious whether the US administration is only paying lip-service to spending cuts or will actually make a meaningful dent into the $2T a year deficit. It makes sense to keep an eye on the House vote on a senate budget proposal as liberal fiscal policies have been linked to BTC price performance.

Crypto-wise, we can expect further fallout & volatility as a result of the massive ByBit hack possibly centered around speculation on the price of ETH. ByBit are expected to make ETH purchases in order to cover the lost amount, while ETH shorts & selling pressure as a result of the hack may also be a telling factor. The substantial SOL unlock on March 1 may also lead to sentiment turning bearish for the coming week.