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Bitcoin, ether little changed before U.S. inflation report: Crypto Markets Today

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Bitcoin, ether little changed before U.S. inflation report: Crypto Markets Today

Bitcoin rose to test $67,000 early Friday and was quickly rebuffed, though it remains about 1% higher since midnight UTC with ether rising half as much. The derivatives market, too, is showing signs of positivity.

The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) is little changed, up just 0.7% in the period.

While the gains mark a recovery from yesterday’s U.S. trading, which saw the cryptocurrency market fall back toward last week’s lows, bitcoin is still on track for a fourth straight week of declines. That’s the longest falling streak since mid-November.

Meantime, a slowdown in trading and fading volatility are weighing on volumes.

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It’s likely that traders are looking to the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) print coming later today for hints on direction. A higher-than-forecast reading could lift bond yields and the dollar, putting additional pressure on risk assets. A lower reading might signal the easier conditions that are more conducive to risk-taking.

Even so, it will take quite a jump to push the bitcoin price to $85,000, a level that Deribiti’s chief commercial officer, Jean-David Péquignot, said would signal the largest cryptocurrency’s long-term rally is no longer “broken.”

Derivatives

  • The market is showing signs of renewed life as open interest (OI) dropped to $15.5 billion, suggesting a cleanup of late-cycle leverage.
  • Perpetual funding rates have flipped neutral to positive across all venues, now ranging between 0% and 8%. This broader optimism is being mirrored by institutions, as the three-month annualized basis spiked to just over 3%, signaling the first real uptick in professional conviction.
  • The bitcoin options market shows returning call volume at 65%, even as the one-week 25-delta skew eased to 17.9%. Despite this “bottom-fishing” activity, the implied volatility (IV) term structure remains in short-term backwardation, confirming that traders are still paying a high “panic premium” for immediate downside protection.
  • Coinglass data shows $256 million in 24-hour liquidations, split 69-31 between longs and shorts. Bitcoin ($112 million), ether ($52 million) and others ($16 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
  • The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $68,800 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price rise.

Token Talk

  • PUMP, the token of Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, is up more than 5% in the past 24 hours.
  • The platform rolled out a new way for token communities to allocate fees directly through its mobile app with the inclusion of GitHub account integration.
  • The integration offers a simpler way for creators to assign automatic payouts generated by a token’s community, and more social features are expected to be introduced in the future.
  • In practice, this means communities can start supporting creators on GitHub through a portion of the fees generated. To receive the fees, creators will need to claim them through the platform’s mobile app.
  • Pump.fun was largely behind a major memecoin trading frenzy early last year that saw its monthly trading volume surge past $11 billion. Volume has since plunged to $1 billion last month, according to DeFiLlama data.

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BTC Must Break This Key Level to Confirm a Real Rally

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BTC Must Break This Key Level to Confirm a Real Rally

Bitcoin remains trapped in a broader corrective structure, but the price action is starting to stabilize after defending the $60,000 demand region. The daily chart still leans cautiously as BTC trades below the major moving averages and beneath the descending resistance trendline.

That leaves the cryptocurrency at an important crossroads, where a push higher could extend the recovery toward overhead supply, while failure would keep the broader downtrend intact.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Bitcoin is still trading inside a well-defined bearish structure, with the price capped below both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The 100-day MA is now trending lower near the mid $80,000 region, while the 200-day MA sits even higher around the mid $90,000s, showing that the broader trend remains under pressure.

In addition, BTC is still moving beneath the descending trendline that has guided the correction for months, which means the buyers have not yet delivered a convincing structural reversal.

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That said, the reaction from the blue support zone around $60,000 was technically important. Buyers stepped in aggressively after the sharp flush below $60,000, and BTC has since rebounded toward the $68,000 area. The first major resistance remains around $76,000 to $80,000, where previous horizontal support turned into supply. As long as Bitcoin stays below that region, rebounds are likely to be viewed as corrective.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

On the 4-hour chart, Bitcoin is consolidating inside a rising channel, suggesting that the recent move off the lows is more of a recovery phase than a full bullish reversal. The asset is currently hovering around $68,000 after rejecting from the upper boundary of the channel near the $72,000 to $75,000 resistance area. This rejection confirms that sellers are still active on rallies, especially when BTC approaches confluence resistance, where the channel top overlaps with horizontal supply.

Momentum has also cooled noticeably. The RSI pushed into overbought territory during the recent rally, but has since rolled over and dropped back toward neutral, showing fading upside strength in the short term.

For buyers, holding above the mid-channel area and continuing to defend the $64,000 to $65,000 region would keep the structure constructive for another attempt higher. On the downside, a breakdown below the lower boundary of the channel could send Bitcoin back toward the $60,000 support zone and potentially even lower.

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On-Chain Analysis

From an on-chain perspective, Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit and Loss, or NUPL, has fallen sharply and is now sitting around 0.20. That is a major reset compared to the euphoric readings seen during the rally toward the cycle highs.

In simple terms, the market has flushed out a large portion of paper profits, which usually reflects a substantial reduction in speculative excess. While this does not guarantee an immediate trend reversal, it often creates a healthier backdrop than the overheated conditions seen near major tops.

Historically, a NUPL reading around this zone points to a market that is no longer in euphoria and is instead moving closer to the kind of sentiment reset that can support medium term base building. That fits well with the current price structure, where Bitcoin is trying to stabilize after a heavy correction rather than accelerate into a fresh expansion leg.

So, on-chain data suggests downside risk may be more limited than it was near the highs, but for a stronger bullish case, that improving on-chain backdrop still needs confirmation from price through a reclaim of higher resistance levels on both the daily and 4-hour charts.

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Latin America’s crypto user growth outpaced U.S. by 3x in 2025, report shows

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Evolution of active crypto app users (Lemon)

Latin America’s crypto market is expanding far faster than that of the United States as users increasingly rely on cryptocurrencies for payments and cross-border transfers rather than speculation. a new report claims.

The region, according to a report from Argentinian crypto firm Lemon, received more than $730 billion in cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2025, a 60% increase from the previous year, representing roughly 10% of global crypto activity.

Growth was not only measured in transaction volume. Monthly active crypto app users in Latin America rose about 18% year over year, roughly three times faster than growth in the United States, the report said.

Brazil dominates the region by transaction size.

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Evolution of active crypto app users (Lemon)

The country received $318.8 billion in crypto value with growth approaching 250% year over year, driven largely by institutional trading and expanding regulatory clarity for financial institutions.

Argentina shows a different pattern. Despite inflation falling to about 32% in 2025, crypto adoption continued to rise. Average monthly users were four times higher than during the 2021 bull market, according to the report.

One driver is cross-border payments. Argentine fintech companies linked crypto rails to Brazil’s PIX instant payment system, allowing users to pay Brazilian merchants using pesos while stablecoins such as USDT settle the transaction behind the scenes.

The integration led to 5.4 million crypto app downloads in Argentina during 2025, with January downloads hitting a record level.

Peru, which back in January saw Bybit Pay integrate with digital wallets Yape and Plin, emerged as one of the fastest-growing markets. Crypto app users doubled as interoperability rules allowed banks and digital wallets to connect. Transfers between banks and wallets surpassed 540 million transactions, up 120% year over year.

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Stablecoins are playing a central role in the shift toward practical use cases. Across the region, users rely on digital dollars to send money abroad, receive funds from platforms like PayPal and bypass traditional banking networks, the report points out.

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How Much Bitcoin Can Michael Saylor Buy via Strategy’s STRC Stock?

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How Much Bitcoin Can Michael Saylor Buy via Strategy’s STRC Stock?

Michael Saylor’s Strategy may purchase more Bitcoin (BTC) in the coming weeks through the proceeds from its STRC stock sales.

Key takeaways:

What is STRC stock?

Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) owns about $50 billion in Bitcoin, the highest by any public company on record.

Stretch (STRC) is Strategy’s income-focused preferred stock launched in July 2025 to raise capital for its Bitcoin accumulation strategy.

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In its IPO, the company raised about $2.521 billion gross and $2.474 billion net. It then used those proceeds to acquire 21,021 BTC at an average price of about $117,256.

Strategy later expanded that model by launching a $4.2 billion STRC at-the-market (ATM) program on July 31, 2025, allowing it to sell preferred shares gradually into market demand rather than all at once.

How does STRC work?

The mechanism works best when STRC trades near or above its $100 target. For that, Strategy pays a variable monthly yield to investors, adjusting it to keep the stock close to its par value.

Higher yield can support the price when it falls below par, while a lower yield can cool demand when it rises too far above it. For March 2026, the annualized STRC rate is 11.50%, or about $0.958 per share monthly.

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STRC price performance in the past month. Source: BitcoinQuant.CO

In short, STRC turns investor demand for yield into funding for more BTC purchases.

For example, in January, Strategy sold about 1.19 million STRC shares for $119.1 million in net proceeds, alongside $1.12 billion raised through MSTR sales.

It used the combined capital to purchase 13,627 BTC for roughly $1.25 billion.

In February, STRC proceeds worth $78.4 million were used in the purchase of 2,486 BTC net.

Saylor may have $302 million in STRC proceeds

Strategy may soon raise over $300 million through sales of its STRC preferred stock, potentially giving Michael Saylor enough firepower to buy roughly 4,300 Bitcoin, according to estimates from BitcoinQuant.

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The projection is based on STRC’s trading activity this week. BitcoinQuant’s model shows about $777 million in total volume, with roughly 97%, or $755 million, traded above the stock’s $100 par value.

STRC ATM analysis. Source: BitcoinQuant

Using a 40% capture rate, the model estimates around $302 million in net proceeds, enough to purchase about 4,334 BTC, based on average Bitcoin prices of $68,000 to $73,000 during market hours.

Friday alone saw a record $188 million in STRC trading volume, implying enough potential proceeds to fund the purchase of around 1,097 BTC, based on the same model.

Related: Michael Saylor’s Strategy buys $204M of Bitcoin in 101st purchase

The figures remain speculative for now, however. Strategy’s latest filing showed only $7.1 million in STRC sales contributing to a broader 3,015 BTC purchase.

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Whether this week’s trading surge translates into a much larger Bitcoin buy should become clearer in the company’s next SEC filing, releasing on March 9.