The latest moves in crypto markets, in context By Lyllah Ledesma, CoinDesk reporter Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. |
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Happy Tuesday! Here’s what you need to know today in crypto: |
Ether options traders are bracing for a short-term price decline. El Salvador’s treasury is sitting on $84 million in unrealized profit on its bitcoin holdings. Two Binance senior executives are being held against their will by Nigerian authorities. |
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CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,728 +0.5% Bitcoin (BTC): $72,079 +0.6% Ether (ETC): $4,036 +0.2% S&P 500: 5,117.94 −0.1% Gold: $2,177 −0.3% Nikkei 225: $2,177 −0.3% |
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Ether (ETH) options traders are bracing for near-term price weakness a day after the cryptocurrency convincingly rose past $4,000 to the highest since late 2021. Ether's one-month call-put skew, an options market measure of sentiment, has turned negative, hinting at the relative richness of puts, or options used to protect against bearish price trends. The 60-day guage has also flipped in favor of put options, while the 90-day and 180-day metrics remain positive. A put option gives the purchaser the right, but not the obligation, to sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date. A put buyer is implicitly bearish on the market, often looking to protect spot market holdings from potential price slides. A call option offers protection against bullish moves. |
The 30- and 60-day skews hover below zero, indicating a bias for puts. (Amberdata) |
El Salvador’s bitcoin treasury is sitting on $84 million in unrealized profit on the holdings it first started acquiring in September 2021. Bitcoin’s 250% rise over the past year has catapulted the Central American nation’s bitcoin treasury to over $206 million as of Tuesday, a 69% gain on initial capital. It holds 2,681 BTC, data shows, acquired over 12 separate purchases at an average cost of $42,600. In 2021, bitcoin went on equal footing with the U.S. dollar in El Salvador after a historic “Bitcoin Law” made the country the first to recognize bitcoin as a legal tender. Since then, goods, services and taxes can all be paid for in bitcoin. Two senior executives of Binance, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, have been held against their will for the past two weeks by Nigerian authorities, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Wired. The executives appear to have been detained due to the accusations brought against the crypto exchange by Nigeria. In the past few weeks, reports have emerged that the African country has demanded $10 billion from Binance in penalties for allegedly enabling some $26 billion of untraceable funds to be processed in the nation. The Nigerian government had invited the executives to discuss the current dispute. The duo landed in Abuja on Feb. 25, Wired reported, citing their families. After the first meeting with government officials, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were “taken to their hotels, told to pack their things, and moved into a 'guesthouse' run by Nigeria’s National Security Agency, according to their families,” the report said. |
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Market Insight: This Bull Run Is Breeding Millionaire Whales at a Slower Pace |
The ongoing bitcoin (BTC) bull run is characterized by Wall Street’s embrace of the long-awaited spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Nevertheless, the rally is producing millionaires at a slower rate than the 2020-2021 uptrend. The leading cryptocurrency by market value has risen 70% this year, setting record highs above $72,000. The rally follows the past year’s 155% surge from the depths of a brutal bear market. According to data tracked by Paris-based Kaiko, fewer than 2,000 millionaires, or wallets with $1 million worth of bitcoin, are created daily. That’s significantly lower than the last bull run, which bred over 4,000 millionaire wallets per day and over 2,000 wallets with a $10 million balance per day. |
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The weekly price chart shows that DOGE has hit a two-year high, breaking out of a long-term base pattern in a move reminiscent of COIN's bullish action in December.The breakout suggests a bullish shift in the market trend.The rally in DOGE and other meme coins is taken to represent speculative frenzy, often observed at market tops. That said, DOGE's price is still well below its record high of 60 cents, reached in May 2021.Source: TradingView. |
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Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments. |
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