Crypto Daybook Americas: BTC Price Volatility Drops on 'Wait and See' Stance as Fed Minutes Due

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Cryptocurrency investors seem to be adopting a “wait-and-see” approach to the plethora of conflicting headlines appearing. As a result, the BTC Volatility Index (DVOL) on popular options exchange Deribit has been dropping since Jan. 20, falling from a high of 72 to around 50.8.

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The drop signals bitcoin's maturation as an asset, according to Tracy Jin, COO of cryptocurrency trading platform MEXC. "Rather than reacting sharply to short-term market shocks, BTC is showing signs of stabilization, increasingly resembling the dynamics of commodity markets and traditional safe-haven assets,” Jin said.

While FTX creditor payouts have started rolling out, the Libra token debacle just keeps intensifying. The co-creator of the token, Hayden Davis, bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei’s inner circle ahead of the memecoin’s launch, according to messages reviewed by CoinDesk.

Meanwhile, Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, is set to raise an additional $2 billion by selling zero-coupon convertible notes. The funds raised will mostly be used to accumulate more BTC.

As Brevan Howard Digital’s CEO and CIO — that's just one person — stressed at Consensus Hong Kong, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has evolved since the collapse of FTX, but 24/7 risk management is still a necessity.

On the macro front, traders are focusing on minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January interest rate meeting. Indications of the potential impact of increased tariffs are a particular point of focus, given President Donald Trump’s comments on tariffs “in the neighborhood of 25% for automobiles, semiconductors, and pharmaceutical products.”

Recent U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh have led to the appointing of teams to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and commitments to “normalize the operation” of their diplomatic missions. Still, excluding representatives from Ukraine and Europe remains a point of contention. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Token Events

Governance Compound DAO is discussing evolving Compound Sandbox into Compound V4 to introduce streamlined governance, dynamic market parameters, enhance the liquidation mechanism, and improve cross-chain reward distribution. Aave DAO is discussing expanding the AAVE governance token integration on the platform by adding AAVE collateral option to Base. Uniswap DAO is discussing funding liquidity incentives for Uniswap V4 on the Unichain network to attract liquidity providers and traders to the protocol.

Unlocks Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.6 million. Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.92% of circulating supply worth $34.23 million.

Token Launches Feb. 20: Pi Network (PI) to be listed on MEXC, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, CoinW, DigiFinex and others.



Conferences:

CoinDesk's Consensus to take place in Hong Kong on Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

Sonic, the recently rebranded token that used to be called Fantom, has risen by 37% in the past week. The surge has been attributed to an increase in on-chain activity and a boost in general sentiment following the rebrand.

The memecoin sector is reeling from the controversy over Argentine President Javier Milei and the Libra token. The market cap of the sector is down 4.4% in 24 hours to $72.9 billion as traders begin to pull liquidity and question the legitimacy of a market many view as an endless cycle of "pump and dumps."

More than $35 billion worth of value has exited decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols since mid-December. Part of the slump is tied to dwindling asset prices, but there has also been a disproportionate amount of outflows from Solana-based liquid staking protocols this week, DefiLlama data shows.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC's CME futures premium has compressed to an annualized 6%, according to data tracked by Paradigm. That's a sign of bullish expectations becoming tempered amid continued sideways price movement.

LTC, TRX and HYPE lead growth in perpetual futures open interest.

BTC and ETH options due for settlement after February continue to exhibit bullish sentiment, although the premium for calls has reduced to some extent.

Block flows have been mixed with puts bought in the February expiry.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 1.34% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday to $96,356.41 (24hrs: +0.79%)

ETH is up 3.25% at $2,735.66 (24hrs: +1.54%)

CoinDesk 20 is down 2.80% to 3,195.66 (24hrs: +1.12%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 13 bps to 3.05%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0205% (7.4657% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.14% at 107.20

Gold is up 0.31% at $2,944.53/oz

Silver is up 0.59% to $33.05/oz

Nikkei 225 closed -0.27% at 39,164.61

Hang Seng closed -0.14% at 22,944.24

FTSE is down 0.28% at 8,742.27

Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.48 at 5,507.77

DJIA closed Tuesday unchanged at 44,556.34

S&P 500 closed +0.24% at 6,129.58

Nasdaq closed +0.07% at 20,041.26

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.65% at 25,648.84

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.28% at 2,497.37

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was up 1 bps at 4.56%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.1% to 6,140.5

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.1% at 22,219

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.16% to 44,571



Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.08 (-0.32%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02836 (1.54%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 784 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $53.61

Total Fees: 4.7 BTC / $452,182

CME Futures Open Interest: 172,530 BTC

BTC priced in gold:32.6 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.26%

Technical Analysis

SOLBTC's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

The SOL-BTC ratio has dropped out of a multiweek consolidation range.

The technical breakdown suggests the possibility of a continued underperformance by the Solana blockchain's token.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $333.97 (-1.11%), up 0.87% at $336.88 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $264.63 (-3.53%), up 1.27% at $268.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.31 (-4.58%).

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.05 (-5.03%), up 1.56% at $16.30.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.56 (-5.79%), up 1.12% at $11.69.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.39 (-0.96%), down 1.05% at $12.26.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.08 (-4.00%), up 1.39% at $10.22.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.84 (-2.39%), up 0.31% at $22.91.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $50.72 (+2.11%), up 2.09% at $51.78.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $46.55 (-6.90%), up 5% at $49.00.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$60.7 million

Cumulative net flows: $40.06 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.163 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: $4.6 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.16 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.784 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

AUSD's market cap. (Artemis)

The U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin Agora Dollar (AUSD), which debuted on Solana at the end of January, has surpassed $100 million in market capitalization.

The next stop could be $1 billion, according to Artemis.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether