Crypto markets trade cautiously as macro conditions remain unclear

Hola folks!

Monday—the most misunderstood day—is actually a special day that lets you look back at the week gone by and prepares you to face the week ahead. And here we are, shaking off the Monday blues with this weekly edition that covers everything crypto.

Weekends are usually buzzing for most of us, but not for the crypto market which was all quiet. The spotlight, as expected, was on BTC, which traded around $43k level, while ETH consolidated near $2.3k. Investors appear bullish, going by the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which flashed a reading of 60/100.

Yet, there’s more to the crypto world than these market leaders as we will find out. Read on as we discuss what makes them tick, plus an exciting new way to ‘Earn’ through CoinSwitch.

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Like many of our user-friendly initiatives, ‘CoinSwitch Earn’ enables crypto holders to get rewards on their holdings by locking them for validation on the blockchain. The video below provides a step-by-step guide on how to use the feature on the app. Click on the link below to learn more.

Crypto markets traded in a tight range last week and ended in the green, even as the US Fed announced the status quo in terms of interest rates and also discounted chances of an upcoming rate cut in March. This resulted in a global sell-off in risky assets, including equities and crypto, but crypto prices have since recovered lost ground. Leading the rally was Bitcoin, with BTC prices back above $43k and rising relatively higher when compared to the rally in ETH prices (now trading above $2.3k). Ethereum is struggling to find strong investor demand, even as its competitor Layer 1s like Solana and Avalanche continue to gain in prices at a rapid price!

Two main factors are driving the BTC price rally, with the first being a crisis brewing in the US banking industry similar to the one witnessed last year after SVB and Signature Bank collapsed. Investors are evaluating Bitcoin as an alternative hedge to such banking threats. The second reason is the continued inflow of institutional demand for the spot Bitcoin ETFs. With the outflow from GBTC finally slowing down, after relentless selling of over $5bn in BTC, the focus has now shifted to the constant accumulation by TradFi giants with Blackrock and Fidelity leading the pack with over $3bn and $2.5bn in BTC respectively! Last week saw six straight days of net inflows into the spot ETFs and this accumulation data will be important to note in the coming few weeks.

For the broader crypto markets, it was a mixed bag as most top crypto assets traded in a tight price range. Solana's SOL continued to surge in prices after the ecosystem witnessed its largest airdrop, as DEX Jupiter protocol rewarded early users with >$700mm in JUP tokens. Another major crypto asset that has continued to rise in price is Chainlink's LINK, jumping 25% as whale accumulation in the token is rapidly increasing. 

In not-so-great news, Polygon Labs announced massive layoffs to restructure its team, even as the MATIC token continued to trade in the green. ImmutableX's IMX token jumped sharply on the launch of its zkEVM mainnet. Another sub-sector that witnessed a surge in prices was AI-related tokens as Vitalik published a post about the intersection of crypto and AI, with Bittensor's TAO and Render RNDR leading the charge. Move-based SUI token also touched new all-time highs on rapidly increasing DeFi TVL. In the gaming sub-sector, RONIN witnessed a strong spike in prices after its game Axie Infinity saw a successful NFT sale.

• SOL $97.06 ⏬ 0.18%

• LINK $18.73 ⏫ 28.07%

• MATIC $$0.7812 ⏬ 1.24% 

• IMX $2.17 ⏫ 10.49% 

(All data here is as of 3:24 p.m., 5 February 2024)

Before we conclude, here’s a quick look at some important news from around the crypto world.

• El Salvador’s bitcoin-friendly President Nayib Bukele is on his way to another five-year term, according to exit polls which show him with an overwhelming lead shortly after voting ended on Feb. 4 evening. Read more here. 
  

• BlackRock’s IBIT and ProShares’ BITO became the first bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to cross Grayscale’s GBTC trading volume on Feb. 1. IBIT ended trading with $306 million in trades placed, while BITO traded $298 million. Read more here. 
  

• The Ethereum blockchain’s biggest upgrade since early 2023 went live on the second of three test networks, bringing the much-anticipated “Dencun” project and its “proto-danksharding” feature a step closer to reality. Read more here.

Take a break and catch your breath with our crypto crossword!

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That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking around.

See you later, folks! 👋

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