May 14, 2024

Bitcoin fell below $62,000 during the European morning on Tuesday, losing about 1.63% over 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a broad measurement of the digital asset market as a whole, fell almost 1.1%. Ether declined more than 2% to just above $2,900, while solana was largely unchanged at $145. In the next 24 hours, attention will turn to inflation reports out of the U.S. The latest Producer Price Index (PPI) is set for release at 08:30 ET today and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is due tomorrow. Stubbornly high inflation has previously put paid to hopes of rate cuts in the U.S., which can have the effect of a handbrake on risk assets such as crypto.

The rally in GameStop (GME) stock has prompted a surge in meme coins PEPE, FLOKI and MOG. A post on X by retail trader @TheRoaringKitty, who was at the center of the GME short squeeze in 2021, sent the video-game retailer's stock flying on Monday, triggering a rally in the major meme tokens. PEPE, FLOKI and MOG all jumped as much as 30% in the last 24 hours, suggesting traders may be preempting a repeat of the DOGE rally in 2021 which occurred following GME's surge. "Roaring Kitty's return was perceived as bullish for meme coins because the market remembered that much of the GameStop mania of 2021 spilled over to $DOGE and other meme coins,” MOG token developer Shisui told CoinDesk in a message.  

Coinbase (COIN) suffered a three-hour outage from 04:15 UTC on Tuesday, returning to use at 07:42, according to its status page. Website visitors had received a "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" message beforehand. While the outage has been tackled, Coinbase noted that some users may still experience failure when sending crypto or withdrawing fiat. COIN shares were down around 2.25% at $195 during mid-morning in Europe before the U.S. market opened. The bitcoin price appeared to be unaffected. Coinbase had noted that "Your funds are safe," in a post on X during the outage, and did not disclose anything further on the nature of the problem.

Bitcoin's options market is pricing negligible volatility following U.S. inflation data this week.

The pricing of BTC options – which can be a hedge against swings in the asset's price – suggests traders do not foresee a volatility explosion after the latest CPI release on Wednesday. 

"The market is pricing a premium of only 1.5 vols for the event ... almost negligible," institutional liquidity provider OrBit Markets, one of the top altcoin market makers on Deribit, told CoinDesk. In other words, prices may move less than 2% on either side following the CPI report, exhibiting hardly any additional volatility. S&P 500 options are pricing in relatively higher volatility for the release, OrBit said.

Forecasts point towards a cost-of-living increase of 3.4% year-on-year, compared to March's 3.5%. Core CPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy component, probably rose 3.6% year-on-year, down from March's 3.8%, according to estimates published by Bloomberg.