it was indeed. a very... bad .... CME open

wrong, a lot more $$ was liquidated

just 2.1b on ByBit according to CEO

https://x.com/aggrnews/status/1886393000130965651?s=46&t=17ly50Vlll8LmKuyomFMTg

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S WHITE HOUSE A.I. AND CRYPTO CZAR DAVID SACKS WILL HOST A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FEBRUARY 4 AT 2:30PM ET ON DIGITAL ASSETS

*They will discuss How the trump administration & congress will work together to secure america as a leader in the digital asset ecosystem.

Unfortunate turn of events last few days

At first stocks were pumping, Saylor announced 2b convert, market started recovering after Milei-scandal, SEC drops Coinbase suit

turned into... stocks -2% into Opex (options expirations) & biggest ever crypto hack in ByBit 1.46b in ETH

I think (and hope for sake of everyone) that ByBit will be fine and users will be fine, withdrawing funds into safety is always a good move until things clear out

More than 9% of all BTC Open Interest has left the system with ByBit OI down 20%, to me that indicates that people with open positions on ByBit are closing/derisking and offramping. Very "systematic" selling

TradFi closes in 40 minutes, I think market bounces nicely once there is positive news about ByBit situation

TLDR: Stonks bad, ByBit really bad, people panicking, Saylor will save us again

Have a good weekend

a tough week for crypto and frankly unfortunate timing, Saylor stopped his 2b purchase right before series of bad news into weak TradFi markets

We had a tiny bit of bounce after ByBit news, however tradfi has seen a really bad week with a combination of already weak crypto market

ETFs yesterday have seen a biggest Outflow day ever (almost 1b outflow)

NVIDIA earnings today and PCE on Friday.

my base case for strength was always
- Saylor is buying billions worth of BTC
- ETFs (ditto)

Unfortunately (currently) we have ETFs selling at unprecedented pace, TradFi weakness and MSTR NAV premium being lowest in last 12 months (sitting at 1.46x)

https://x.com/RunnerXBT/status/1894660894728069474

a lot of people on the way up speculated, that a lot of BTC spot ETF inflows is just to do the basis trade (which is very normal for more trad/insti market participants)

TLDR: its unwinding and pretty fast
BTC CME OI back at pre-election levels

to follow-up on the post above

-2.4b in ETF outflows in last 3 days
CME BTC OI -5k BTC yesterday

I do have a feeling that Institutional Basis trade in crypto is very close to unwinding (85%-ish done)

Today (Thursday) I think will be boring and tomorrow

USA: PCE should bring a lot of volatility, also it is now Trump tradition to bring out big gun Tarriffs headlines each Friday...

as per Directional Bias - I dont know

But some tips I can give
- dont get directionally excited outside of US sessions (its very obvious Macro/TradFi is dictating the direction/pace right now)

just few hrs ago markets were recovering, USA opened just 30 minutes ago + Trump mentions Tariffs again, back to selling off

if you are CET like me, its 3:30 pm to 10 pm

I do expect ETF outflows to continue at least till next monday (as monday will reflect this Fridays flows as there is 1 day delay)

March 2nd update:

TLDR: Short term great news, pending Friday details.

Trump mentions strategic reserves for BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL & ADA (+potentially others?) on Truth Social (his version of Twitter)
with "More to come at the Summit."

Summit being "White House first ever Crypto Summit on March 7th (Friday)

Good news/hopium paired with the fact its sunday and books are pretty illiquid, price rallied a bunch.

I do expect optimism and ETF inflows to come in hot all week before Fridays Crypto Summit.

BTC CME Basis Trade has already unwound and TradFi has had a meaningful correction too.

Currently trying to figure out now how "quickly" could USA actually start buying these assets and create some scenarios for Friday, I do think crypto natives will be unhappy in almost every scenario as the "consensus" seems to be that this process takes a while

extra note: Tariffs go into "effect" this coming Tuesday (March 4th)

what has made me a bunch of money and or gave me speed advantage over others are these two Telegram news-feeds (both are free to join)

https://news.1rj.ru/str/BWEnews
https://news.1rj.ru/str/PhoenixNewsImportant

*TRUMP: 25% TARIFFS ON CANADA, MEXICO TOMORROW

*LUTNICK: TARIFFS COMPROMISE ANNOUNCEMENT LIKELY TOMORROW

(24 hrs later)