CAKE, TKX Add Spark as BTC Price Treads Water Before Fed

By Omkar Godbole (All times are in ET unless stated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) remained near its 200-day average of $84,000 following the exit of a prominent whale from a significant short position in BTC worth millions. Meanwhile, altcoins such as CAKE, TKX, OKB, and ATOM helped lift market spirits with their strong performances.

The SUI token faced challenges in maintaining its 6% gain from Monday, which had been driven by asset managers’ ETF filings with the SEC, illustrating a growing interest from institutional investors in the broader cryptocurrency market.

Despite some analysts suggesting that the bitcoin bull run might be over and questioning the sustainability of its recent upswing, data shows a different story, indicating that the selling pressure linked to ETFs is nearing exhaustion.

On Monday, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs welcomed $275 million in new investments, building on Friday’s influx of $41 million. This marks the first consecutive days of inflows since February 7, according to data from Farside Investors.

“This information strengthens the viewpoint that the ETF-induced selling pressure is running thin,” remarked Valentin Fournier, an analyst at BRN. “Should this pattern persist, we could witness a gradual increase in inflows, which would further bolster bitcoin’s price.”

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday may introduce volatility to the crypto landscape, with a dovish statement potentially encouraging more risk-taking behavior.

“Following the FOMC, bitcoin is forecasted to trade between $80,000 and $86,000 with an 80% level of confidence, while ethereum is expected to oscillate between $1,800 and $2,100 under the same confidence level,” according to Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research. “These ranges take into account potential movements influenced by macroeconomic indicators, investor sentiment, and overall financial conditions.”

In traditional markets, European stocks experienced slight gains ahead of a crucial German parliamentary vote concerning significant debt reforms. Gold maintained its position above $3,000 per ounce, with analysts at BlackRock suggesting that the precious metal serves as a better diversifier compared to Treasury notes in the current economic climate.

Meanwhile, futures linked to the Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Dow were mostly steady to slightly negative amid reports that a call between Trump and Putin regarding the Ukraine peace negotiations is scheduled between 13:00 and 15:00 GMT. Stay tuned!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
• Macro
  • March 18, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada will release February’s consumer price index (CPI) data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.4%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.1%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 0.1%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.1% vs. Prev. 1.9%
  • March 18, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau will disclose February’s residential construction data.
    • Housing Starts Est. 1.38M vs. Prev. 1.366M
  • March 18, 11:00 p.m.: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) is set to release its monetary policy statement.
    • Interest Rate Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. 0.5%
  • March 19, 6:00 a.m.: Eurostat will provide (final) February eurozone consumer price index (CPI) data.
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.7%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. -0.3%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 2.5%
  • March 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Reserve is expected to announce its interest rate decision, with the FOMC press conference set to be live-streamed 30 minutes later.
    • Fed Funds Interest Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
  • March 19, 3:00 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census will disclose GDP data.
    • Full Year GDP Growth (2024) Prev. -1.6%
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ (Q4) Prev. 3.9%
    • GDP Growth Rate YoY (Q4) Est. 1.7% vs. Prev. -2.1%
  • March 19, 5:30 p.m.: The Central Bank of Brazil will announce its interest rate decision.
    • Selic Rate Est. 14.25% vs. Prev. 13.25%
• Earnings (Estimates based on data)
  • March 27: KULR Technology Group, post-market
  • March 28: Galaxy Digital Holdings, pre-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
• Unlocks
  • March 21: Immutable (IMX) is set to unlock 1.39% of its circulating supply worth $13.96 million.
  • March 23: Metars Genesis (MRS) plans to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply valued at $242.9 million.
  • March 31: Optimism (OP) will unlock 1.93% of its circulating supply worth $27.47 million.
  • April 1: Sui (SUI) is expected to unlock 2.03% of its circulating supply valued at $147.65 million.
  • April 3: Wormhole (W) will unlock 47.7% of its circulating supply, approximately worth $121.48 million.
  • April 7: Kaspa (KAS) is set to unlock 0.59% of its circulating supply valued at $11.28 million.
• Token Listings
  • March 18: Jupiter (JUP) will be listed on Arkham.
  • March 18: Paws (PAWS) will be listed on Bybit.
  • March 18: Slingshot (SLING) will be listed on KuCoin.
  • March 19: Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) and DuckChain (DUCK) will be listed on Kraken.
  • March 31: Binance intends to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• There was a security breach on the BNB Chain’s Four.meme launch platform, where hackers exploited new meme tokens to drain liquidity by circumventing listing restrictions and creating unauthorized trading pairs on PancakeSwap, removing funds around 04:00 GMT.
• This attack came before the planned token launches on Four.meme, where attackers purchased small amounts of tokens prior to launch, added liquidity to PancakeSwap pairs, and then conducted rug pulls targeting popular tokens such as MubaraKing (with 87.90 BNB stolen) as well as EDDY and Cocoro.
• In response, Four.meme has halted new token launches and committed to compensating affected users, although no smart contract vulnerability was found. Analysts, including Chaofan Shou, indicated that leaked early transactions allowed the hacker to perform front-running.
• The exploit took advantage of a faulty token function that permitted transfers during the bonding curve stage—a recurring issue of flow cell manipulation that could affect all Four.meme tokens, despite only a few being targeted due to their popularity.

Derivatives Positioning

• Open interest in ETH, LTC, XRP, and SOL perpetual futures has risen within the last 24 hours, alongside a steady to negative cumulative volume delta (CVD), suggesting net selling in the market.
• SOL, ADA, and DOGE have also displayed negative funding rates.
• Both open interest and basis in BTC and ETH CME futures remain at recent low levels, indicative of a lack of confidence among institutions regarding capital deployment.
• Deribit’s BTC and ETH options continue to show a preference for puts across expiries extending to the end of April.

Market Movements:

• BTC has decreased by 1.62% from 4 p.m. ET on Monday, currently at $82,676.40 (24hrs: -0.81%)
• ETH has fallen 2.29% to $1,892.55 (24hrs: -1.1%)
• The CoinDesk 20 index is down 2.25% at 2,582.56 (24hrs: -1.46%)
• The Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate remains unchanged at 2.96%
• The BTC funding rate stands at 0.0036% (3.89% annualized) on Binance

• The DXY remains steady at 103.28
• Gold has increased by 0.76% to $3,020.72/oz
• Silver has risen by 0.82% to $34.07/oz
• The Nikkei 225 closed up 1.2% at 37,845.42
• The Hang Seng closed up 2.46% at 24,740.57
• The FTSE rose by 0.44% to 8,715.59
• The Euro Stoxx 50 increased by 0.85% to 5,491.99
• The DJIA finished on Monday with a gain of 0.85% at 41,841.63
• The S&P 500 rose 0.64% to 5,675.12
• The Nasdaq closed up 0.31% at 17,808.66
• The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 0.94% to 24,785.11
• The S&P 40 Latin America finished up 1.76% at 2,475.69
• The U.S. 10-year Treasury rate dipped by 1 bp to 4.31%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.29% at 5,715.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures fell 0.38% to 19,963.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures decreased by 0.27% to 42,112.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 61.66 (-0.03%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02285 (-0.31%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 805 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $47.08
• Total Fees: 4.68 BTC / $386,699
• CME Futures Open Interest: 151,030 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 27 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.68%

Technical Analysis

• The dollar index (DXY) continues to decline, having broken through key Fibonacci retracement support at 61.8%, signaling a positive outlook for risk-related assets.
• The breakthrough has revealed subsequent support at 102.32, corresponding to the 78.6% Fibonacci level.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed Monday at $294.27 (-1.08%), down 1.54% in pre-market trading at $289.75
• Coinbase Global (COIN): finished at $188.96 (+3.19%), down 1.55% in pre-market at $186.21
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.35 (-3.5%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.97 (-1.59%), down 1.39% at $12.79 in pre-market
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.76 (-0.77%), down 1.16% in pre-market at $7.67
• Core Scientific (CORZ): finished at $8.76 (-0.57%), down 0.8% in pre-market at $8.69
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.12 (+1.88%), down 1.23% in pre-market at $8.02
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $15.37 (+0.46%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): finished at $36.03 (+4.89%), up 2.19% in pre-market at $36.82
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $32.35 (+15.33%), unchanged in pre-market

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $274.6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $35.67 billion
• Total BTC holdings: approximately 1,120 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$7.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.53 billion
• Total ETH holdings: approximately 3.509 million.

Provided by: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• Pump.fun is a Solana-based platform widely utilized for the creation and distribution of tokens, primarily focused on memecoins.
• Daily token deployment activity has decreased to 29,475 transactions on Monday, down from 71,738 on January 23, indicating that the broader market slowdown has cooled speculative activities.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether