Crypto Daybook Americas: Bybit Hack Fails to Ruffle Feathers, Traders Eye SOL ETF

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin and ether, the two largest digital assets by market value, remain largely within their recent trading ranges two days after the $1.5 billion hack of Bybit, one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Perpetual funding rates for both are positive, indicating a bias for long positions that benefit from price rises. Bitcoin options trading on Deribit show a bullish bias for call options across all time frames, while those tied to ether show a downside bias into March. The bias for ether puts, however, has been present since well before the hack.

Meanwhile, Volmex Finance's 30-day bitcoin implied volatility index has dropped to an annualized 48.45%, the lowest since July, according to charting platform TradingView. Ether's implied volatility has reversed the minor weekend spike from 67% to 70%.

The calm is a sign of market maturity, according to QCP Capital. "The price action underscores the growing maturity of the crypto landscape since the FTX collapse in 2022, particularly in the crypto credit market," the trading firm said. "Every facet of crypto — from custodial and security solutions to corporate governance and transparency — has strengthened with each past crisis."

Overall, the crypto community is reassured by Bybit’s ability to manage over $6 billion in withdrawals following the hack. Plus, the exchange has filled the gap in its ETH reserves.

According to Mena Theodorou, a co-founder of crypto exchange Coinstash, all eyes will be on Solana's SOL as Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset management firms, has submitted a spot SOL ETF proposal to the SEC. In addition, 11.2 million SOL (2.3% of total supply) from the FTX estate are scheduled to be unlocked on March 1, which could breed market volatility. That has already boosted volume in SOL put options on Deribit.

President Donald Trump's decision to audit gold reserves at Fort Knox in Kentucky has piqued interest in the crypto community. "While routine gold audits are rare, the timing is notable as Trump continues to push a pro-crypto narrative. If the gold supply turns out to be lower than expected, it could reinforce Bitcoin’s case as digital gold — and possibly even as a superior reserve asset," Theodorou said in an email.

In traditional markets, the yen continues to gain ground against the U.S. dollar and growth-sensitive commodity currencies such as the Australian dollar, calling for caution on the part of the risk asset bulls. Stay alert

What to Watch

Token Events

Governances votes & calls Sky DAO is voting on key changes to the protocol including reducing the Smart Burn Engine’s protocol-owned liquidity to $15 million, and adjusting some parameters to enable immediate buybacks and direct all surplus to burning. Ampleforth DAO is voting on reducing the Flash Mint fee to 0.5% and the Flash Redeem fee to 5% to increase the system’s adaptability. DYdX DAO is discussing the establishment of a DYDX buyback program. Its initial step would allocate 25% of the dYdX’s protocol net revenue to buy back the token.

Unlocks Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $35.43 million. Mar. 1: DYdX to unlocked 1.14% of circulating supply worth $6.24 million. Mar. 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 6.48% of circulating supply worth $13.7 million. Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $81.07 million. Mar. 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.63% of circulating supply worth $15.55 million. Mar. 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.93% of circulating supply worth $69.89 million.

Token Listings Feb. 25: Zoo (ZOO) to be listed on KuCoin. Feb. 26: Moonwell (WELL) to be listed on Kraken. Feb. 27: Venice (VVV) to be listed on Kraken. Feb. 28: Worldcoin (WLD) to be listed on Kraken.



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Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

The perpetrators of the near $1.5 billion hack of major crypto exchange Bybit have seemingly turned to popular Solana-based token launchpad Pump.fun to try to launder the stolen funds.

Pump.fun linked a token called “QinShinhuang (500000)” to the hacker(s) after a 60 SOL transfer and removed the token from its front end to prevent this type of activity.

Pump.fun could meanwhile soon launch its own automated market maker (AMM) in a blow to popular Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium, which benefited from being the platform graduating Pump.fun tokens traded on.

Derivatives Positioning

SOL put options expiring this Friday on Deribit trade at a premium of 7 vol points to calls, reflecting strong downside fears.

Ether options continue to show concerns of downside risk until the end of March, with subsequent expiries reflecting a bullish positioning. BTC options are biased bullish across time frames.

BTC block flows on Deribit featured calendar spreads and a bull call spread. ETH flows included long positions in calls at strikes of $2,850 and $2,900 and a short strangle in the April expiry.

Funding rates in perpetual futures linked to the OM token remain negative, a sign of traders taking protective bearish bets as the spot price continues to hit record highs.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 0.7% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $95,581.78 (24hrs: -0.6%)

ETH is up 1.91% at $2,679.37 (24hrs: -4.25%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 1.18% at 3,089.09 (24hrs: -3.52%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.99%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.51% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 106.6

Gold is unchanged at $2,936.29/oz

Silver is unchanged at $32.47/oz

Nikkei 225 closed on Friday +0.26% at 38,776.94

Hang Seng closed on Monday -0.58% at 23,341.61

FTSE is up 0.1% at 8,668.07

Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,477.70

DJIA closed Friday -1.69% at 43,428.02

S&P 500 closed -1.71% at 6,013.13

Nasdaq closed -2.2% at 19,524.01

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.44% at 25,147.03

S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.89% at 2,408.55

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.44%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.5% at 6,059.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.38% at 21,761.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.71% at 43,796.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.65% (24hrs: 1.3%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02801 (-4.4%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 789 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $56.53

Total Fees: 5.65 BTC / $540,507

CME Futures Open Interest: 169,620 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 32.3 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.17%

Technical Analysis

SOL's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

SOL's daily chart shows the cryptocurrency has dropped below its criticial 200-day simple moving average.

Plus, it has confirmed a double top breakdown with a move below the horizontal (yellow) support line.

The bearish technical setup suggests scope for continued losses toward $120, which acted as a floor last year.

A move above the lower high of $209 printed early this month would invalidate the bearish technical outlook.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $299.69 (-7.48%), up 1.21% at $303.31 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $235.38 (-8.27%), up 2,02% at $240.20

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$22.76 (-11.27%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.66 (-8.09%), up 0.41% at $14.72

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $10.46 (-9.83%), up 2.77% at $10.75

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $10.80 (-8.78%), unchanged in pre-market

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.24 (-8.15%), up 0.97% at $9.34

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $20.52 (-8.76%)

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $47.74 (-8.61%), up 0.65% at $48.05

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.81 (+0.02%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$69.2 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.57 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.167 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$8.9 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.15 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.808 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Daily transactions and cumulative trading volumes on Solana's decentralized exchanges have declined markedly since the debut of the TRUMP memecoin a month ago.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether