Federal Judge Dismisses SEC Case Against Richard Heart, Citing Lack of Jurisdiction

A federal judge has dismissed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Richard Heart, the founder of HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, ruling that the agency lacked jurisdiction because the project did not specifically target U.S. investors.

“The relevant online communications described in the Complaint during the offer periods consist of untargeted, globally available information,” Judge Carol Bagley Amon wrote in her ruling. “The SEC failed to plead sufficient facts to suggest that Heart’s online statements were purposefully directed to the United States rather than a global audience.”

Under U.S. securities law, the SEC must prove that a defendant intentionally engaged with the U.S. market, but the court found Heart’s communications were “untargeted, globally available information,” which failed to demonstrate a deliberate effort to solicit U.S. investors, and noted that the tokens were not available on U.S. exchanges.

The court also ruled that the participation of U.S. persons in the project did not give the SEC jurisdiction stating that the complaint “merely alleges that an unspecified number of U.S.-based investors participated in the offerings,” without demonstrating that transactions occurred in the U.S. The SEC has the option to appeal the ruling or amend it within 20 days.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/28/federal-judge-dismisses-sec-case-against-richard-heart-citing-lack-of-jurisdiction

White House Announces Crypto Roundtable for Next Week

U.S. President Donald Trump will host a crypto summit on March 7, the White House announced.

White House Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks and Bo Hines, the executive director of a working group on digital assets, will run the meeting, though Trump will speak at the summit, a late Friday press release said.

"Attendees will include prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry, as well as members of the President's Working Group on Digital Assets," the release said.

The summit will come just about a month after Sacks, alongside congressional leaders, gave his first public remarks as Trump's crypto czar.

"We want to keep that innovation onshore in the U.S.," he said at the Feb. 4 press conference. "Financial assets are destined to become digital, just like every analog industry has become digital, and we want that value creation to happen in the United States, rather than giving it away to other countries."

The White House did not name the summit's other attendees.

Friday's announcement ends a busy week for the crypto industry. Earlier in the day, a federal judge signed off on the Securities and Exchange Commission's motion to withdraw its case against Coinbase.

Joe Lubin, the CEO of Ethereum incubator ConsenSys, and Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founder of exchange Gemini, both said earlier in the week that the SEC informed their respective companies that it would shutter its investigations into those firms.

The SEC also filed to pause its case against the Tron Foundation and founder Justin Sun.

"After the previous administration unfairly prosecuted the digital asset space, President Trump's policy vision represents a new era for digital financial technology," the press release said. "The administration is committed to providing a clear regulatory framework, enabling innovation and protecting economic liberty."

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/28/white-house-announces-crypto-roundtable-for-next-week

Why DeFi Projects Could Be Ready to Outperform: Kaiko Research

Bitcoin (BTC) took the spotlight from the rest of the crypto market in 2024, but the Trump administration is quickly changing the rules of the game and a rotation into other assets could end up happening, according to crypto data firm Kaiko Research

In fact, the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector isn’t looking too bad, Kaiko research analysts Adam McCarthy and Dessislava Aubert wrote in a new report.

The company’s DeFi index (KSDEFI) has outpaced ether (ETH) since the instrument’s inception in October 2023, bringing in roughly 75% returns in that span of time. That’s remarkable considering that most of the protocols included in the index are built on Ethereum.

“This outperformance may persist into the latter half of 2025, as several assets within the index benefit from strong tailwinds,” the report said. “This trend highlights the decreasing correlation between the DeFi index and ETH over time, as the decentralized finance sector continues to expand beyond the Ethereum ecosystem.”

The index is composed of 11 DeFi tokens, the most heavily weighted being UNI, AAVE and ONDO. At least four of these tokens have powerful tailwinds for the rest of the year, the report said.

For example, regulatory developments in the U.S. may open up possibilities for decentralized exchange Uniswap and decentralized lender Aave to implement fee switches for each of their respective tokens, meaning that protocol fees may end up getting distributed to UNI and AAVE holders.

Tokenization protocol Ondo Finance, for its part, will likely benefit from an acceleration of the tokenization trend as Wall Street keeps wading deeper into crypto, the report said.

“Regulatory constraints in key markets have been a significant hurdle [since 2020], but they are only part of the challenge. DeFi has also faced structural issues, including high user friction due to fees and security concerns. However, with regulatory scrutiny easing, the sector now has abundant opportunities for growth,” the report said.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/28/why-defi-projects-could-be-ready-to-outperform-kaiko-research

Tech Tumble Takes Toll on Bitcoin; Hedge Funder Targets $70K Handle in March

The January bursting of a massive speculative bubble in memecoins by itself seemed good enough reason for the general crypto market selloff of the past several weeks.

The declines sped up in a big way this week, though, in part thanks to growing risk-off sentiment in the previously perky stock market.

Down more than 2% about 45 minutes before the close of trade on Thursday, the Nasdaq is now lower by roughly 7% over the past handful of sessions. Today's losses are being led by the chipmakers following Nvidia's (NVDA) fourth quarter earnings report last night. NVDA is lower by 5%.

The selloff in stocks came as many of the leading names were selling at lofty valuations after what seemed like months worth of unchecked gains. Toss into the mix President Trump's continual tariff threats — the latest being punitive levies against Mexico, Canada, and China to begin on Tuesday — and the stage was set for the current correction.

"Maximum caution is warranted in risk assets," said Quinn Thompson, founder of hedge fund Lekker Capital. "Inflation data is coming in way too hot for the Fed to cut rates in the near-term, long-term inflation expectations are unanchoring to the upside (big red flag) and now U.S. economic data is looking like the 'Trump bump' was a dead cat bounce."

On crypto specifically, there's no suger-coating from Thompson: "Every possible good news item imaginable has come and gone without much upward pressure on price," he said. "Investors have forgotten that bear markets are possible and what they look like." He's targeting the $70,000s for bitcoin by the end of March.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/27/tech-tumble-takes-toll-on-bitcoin-hedge-funder-targets-usd70k-handle-in-march

Crypto Trading Platform BitMEX Is Looking for a Buyer: Sources

BitMEX, the cryptocurrency exchange and derivatives trading platform co-founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes, is looking for a buyer, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

The storied exchange, which arguably made perpetual futures the most popular product among leverage-hungry crypto traders, appointed boutique investment bank Broadhaven Capital Partners late last year to assist with the sales process, the people said.

There has been some M&A interest around the crypto derivatives space of late. For instance, major exchanges Kraken and Coinbase are said to be vying for ownership of the leading crypto options exchange Deribit. Meanwhile, FalconX also bought Arbelos Markets earlier this year to expand its derivatives business.

Back in 2020, BitMEX was alleged to have failed to implement adequate anti-money laundering measures in place, and later pled guilty to the charges. Hayes resigned as CEO shortly after the U.S. brought criminal charges, alongside co-founders Ben Delo and Samuel Reed.

BitMEX and Broadhaven declined to comment on the acquisition plans. Read more: What Are Crypto Derivatives? A Beginner's Guide

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/27/crypto-trading-platform-bitmex-is-looking-for-a-buyer-sources

U.S. Appeals Court (Mostly) Affirms 2023 Ruling Tossing Out Uniswap Class Action Suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling on Wednesday largely agreeing with a lower court’s 2023 decision to toss out a class action suit against decentralized exchange Uniswap.

A group of investors originally sued Uniswap Labs, the company behind the decentralized protocol of the same name, and some of its venture capital investors in 2022, alleging that the company was responsible for harming investors by allowing scam tokens to be issued on its protocol.

District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) sided with Uniswap in 2023 and scrapped the suit before it went to trial, likening the plaintiffs’ arguments to “a suit attempting to hold an application like Venmo or Zelle liable for a drug deal that used the platform to facilitate a fund transfer.”

Plaintiffs appealed Failla’s ruling in September 2023, but were largely shut down by the fresh decision from the Second Circuit on Wednesday. The Second Circuit judges affirmed Failla’s decision to throw out the plaintiffs' claims under both the Securities Act and the Exchange Act, writing:

“In sum, we agree with the district court that it 'defies logic' that a drafter of a smart contract, a computer code, could be held liable under the Exchange Act for a third party user’s misuse of the platform,” the filing read.

The only part of Failla’s ruling that was vacated and remanded back to a district court – meaning the lower court will hear this sliver of the the plaintiffs’ case again – were the state law claims, which essentially seek to try similar allegations under state, rather than federal law, in New York, North Carolina and Idaho.

The ruling is a win for Uniswap, fresh off the heels of Tuesday's announcement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would drop its investigation into the decentralized exchange which, under former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, was being probed for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities broker and unregistered securities exchange, as well as issuing an unregistered security.

Read more: SEC Drops Investigation Into Uniswap, Will Not File Enforcement Action

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/26/u-s-appeals-court-mostly-affirms-2023-ruling-tossing-out-uniswap-class-action-suit

Gotbit Founder Aleksei Andriunin Extradied to U.S. on Fraud Charges

Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin, a 26-year-old Russian national, was extradited to the U.S. on Tuesday to face fraud charges stemming from allegations that his firm participated in a “wide-ranging conspiracy” to manipulate token prices for paying client cryptocurrency companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Wednesday.

Andriunin was arrested in Portugal last October and subsequently indicted by a Boston grand jury on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud, charges which carry a combined maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. The indictment also charged Gotbit itself, as well as two of its directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, both also of Russia.

Between 2018 and 2024, prosecutors say that Gotbit essentially provided market manipulation services for hire, offering their token price-inflating services to a variety of crypto companies, including companies based in the U.S.

Andriunin was not shy about the nature of Gotbit’s services – in a 2019 interview with CoinDesk, which is referenced in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Wednesday announcement, Andriunin, then a sophomore at Moscow State University, bluntly admitted that his business was “not entirely ethical.”

Read more: For $15K He’ll Fake Your Exchange Volume – You’ll Get on CoinMarketCap

According to court documents, Gotbit received “tens of millions of dollars in proceeds” from their fraudulent activity. Andriunin is accused of “transferr[ing] millions of dollars of Gotbit’s proceeds into his personal Binance account.”

Andriunin made an initial appearance before a Boston judge on Tuesday. His next hearing has not yet been scheduled.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/26/gotbit-founder-aleksei-andriunin-extradied-to-u-s-on-fraud-charges

U.S. House Committee Advances Effort to Erase IRS' DeFi Tax Rule

The U.S. House of Representatives has taken the first significant move to erase the work of the Internal Revenue Service to impose a tax regime on decentralized financial (DeFi) platforms in the final days of former President Joe Biden's administration.

The House Ways and Means Committee — the panel responsible for overseeing the Treasury Department's IRS — advanced a resolution in a 26-16 vote to reverse the IRS transaction-reporting policy under the Congressional Review Act. Such an effort requires majority approval in both the House and Senate before a presidential signature would make the move final, and the matter now moves to the overall House.

In December, the IRS had approved a system that the crypto industry says forces DeFi protocols into a reporting regime designed for brokers, threatening the way that such protocols work and also potentially including a wide range of entities that aren't brokers at all. Nearly every major name in the crypto sector signed onto a Blockchain Association letter last week calling for the elimination of this rule.

Read More: Crypto Industry Asks Congress to Scrap IRS's DeFi Broker Rule

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, has fielded a Senate version of the CRA resolution to cut the IRS rule.

"We must pass this resolution to avoid this nightmare for American taxpayers and for the IRS," said Rep. Mike Carey, an Ohio Republican who has pressed for Congress to cut to rule, which he argued would overwhelm the tax agency.

Democrat Rep. Richard Neal from Massachusetts countered the Republican push.

"The bill before us today would repeal sensible and important Treasury regulations ensuring that taxpayers meet their tax filing obligations and do not skirt the law by selling crypto currency without reporting the gains," he said. "It's really that simple."

Eliminating the specific tax approach to decentralized crypto platforms would cut U.S. revenue by an estimated $3.9 billion over a decade.

Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chairman of the committee from Missouri, accused the IRS of going behind "the letter of the law" when it approved the rule during Biden's final days in office.

"Not only is it unfair, but it's unworkable," he said.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/26/u-s-house-committee-advances-effort-to-erase-irs-defi-tax-rule

XRP, BNB Edge Higher as Bitcoin Bulls Eye $90K After Tuesday Bloodbath

Bitcoin (BTC) neared $89,000 in Asian morning hours after a 24-hour low of $86,200, slightly improving market sentiment with major tokens showing signs of a recovery.

XRP and BNB Chain’s BNB led a gradual majors rebound Wednesday as traders continue to reel from Tuesday’s carnage — one that saw overall capitalization drop as much as 10% and at least $1.2 billion in losses on bullish bets.

XRP rose 3%, while BNB and Solana’s SOL added 5%. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano’s ADA showed a slight 1.2% gain, while Tron’s TRX was down 5% in the past 24 hours. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) was down 2%.

The move higher was in line with a CoinDesk analysis on Tuesday, as a five-month low in a sentiment index and a large-scale liquidation event indicated assets were likely oversold and could see relief in the short term.

Gold fell 1.3% on Tuesday after a profit-taking bout following a record rally where it touched a new high Monday, but rose higher in Asian morning hours Wednesday.

Macro Outlook

Reasons for Tuesday’s panic ranged from money flowing out of bitcoin ETFs, with over $1 billion pulled out in the last two weeks, to a stronger yen, a perceived safe-haven currency whose growth tends to pull down riskier bets.

Expectations for easier U.S. Federal Monetary policy have surged, however, with prediction markets putting chances of a May rate cut to 30% over the past week, and the chances of two rate cuts by June have more than tripled to 15%.

These hopes come after a gauge of U.S. consumer confidence marked its deepest fall since August 2021, decreasing 7 points in February to 98.3 in its third straight decline. U.S economic data and policies tend to impact prices of risk assets such as bitcoin, as crypto traders bet on expectations of retail participation as idle cash frees up.

Traders Remain Cautious

Hopes of an altcoin rally remain muted among traders, with fresh dollar inflows expected to flow exclusively to BTC.

BTC finally broke out of its range, dipping below 90k for the first time in a month and now hovering just below that level, triggering over USD 200mm in liquidations over the past few hours.

Market sentiment remains under pressure following Trump’s decision to implement tariffs on Canada and Mexico and curb Chinese investment. Front-end gamma was covering as BTC broke lower, with 1M implied volatility now back around 50v, while skews interestingly remain largely unchanged.

“Zooming out, equities, fixed income, and gold have largely shrugged off the data points previously blamed for broader market weakness, with BTC remaining flat,” Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a broadcast message late Tuesday. “Rising BTC dominance and sliding altcoin prices suggest that alt bulls may already be fully long, with any new dollar inflows going exclusively into BTC.”

“We remain cautious. Recent BTC demand has been driven primarily by institutions like MicroStrategy financed through equity-linked note issuances. With crypto-related issuance accounting for roughly 19% of total issuance over the last 14 months, the market for such financing may be nearing saturation — potentially dampening institutional demand if spot continues to stay muted,” it added.

Players like Strategy (previously MicroStrategy) have been the main drivers of BTC demand in the past weeks and months, funding their purchases by raising their stock. But here’s the catch: companies might struggle to justify more purchases since the hype isn’t increasing prices.Less institutional buying could cool off BTC demand and lead to big investors pulling back, affecting the market further.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/26/xrp-bnb-edge-higher-as-bitcoin-bulls-eye-usd90k-after-tuesday-bloodbath

How to Prepare for a Major Compliance Failure Settlement: The OKX Approach

Confidential protocols put in place to deal with news of regulatory failings by one of the top-five crypto exchanges, OKX, suggest that the company likely has been expecting a settlement with U.S. authorities for some time.

This happened on Monday when OKX announced a $500 million-plus settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice after failing to secure a money transmitter license and allegedly facilitating $5 billion in "suspicious transactions and criminal proceeds."

OKX’s meticulous planning makes for some fascinating reading. The secret crisis management document seen by CoinDesk refers to a messaging “SWAT Team” that can be mobilized to implement various ways the firm’s top executives can communicate a settlement via social media and when speaking to reporters.

Well in advance of Monday’s large fine and forfeiture, OKX had produced specific guidance with regards to settling with the DOJ, as well as the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, or sanctions watchdog), for example.

A favored approach is to point out that the entire crypto industry has been broadly under intense scrutiny and that OKX is cooperating fully with regulators, the document said. This was echoed in Monday’s press release which said OKX “appreciates” the DOJ’s “collaboration.”

Since the administration of President Donald Trump took over last month, the main focus for regulatory agencies in the crypto arena has been to reverse their previously aggressive enforcement stance, with the SEC dropping ongoing litigation and closing investigations. But not so in the case of OKX, which, like Kucoin with its recent $300 million penalty and Binance back in 2023, has been forced into costly settlements.

The guidance refers to what is expected from OKX founder Star Xu, President Hong Fang and other executives when it comes to “their social media actions in two scenarios: 1) Leak before OFAC settlement, 2) upon OFAC settlement.”

Also, on the issue of OFAC, if executives are asked if OKX has served sanctioned markets, one suggestion is to say: “Customers from sanctioned markets slipped through when we had immature compliance controls and systems [...] It is a very small and insignificant part of the Okcoin or OKX customer base.”

Indeed, Monday's press release from OKX acknowledged that U.S. customers were able to trade on the global exchange.

"The total number of U.S. customers involved – which are no longer on the platform – amounted to a small percentage of the Company’s worldwide customer population," the release said.

Brand awareness

Another priority for OKX is how the firm choreographs its big-ticket sponsorship arrangements with the likes of Manchester City football club, F1 team McLaren and the Tribeca Film Festival. The firm estimates that around $100 million per annum has been spent on these partnerships over the past three years.

The action plan for brand partners involves the OKX marketing chief giving each partner a phone call “at the last hour before the news breaks.”

The recommended strategy here is to say OKX has prepared for a regulatory review, given the heightened scrutiny on crypto firms. If asked why the exchange did not share information about this before, the document states that these are pending inquiries and non-public matters. There is also a bullet point suggesting the CMO and OKX’s head of legal “review clauses in our brand partner contracts again.”

Don’t mention OKB

Another detail that gets attention in the OKX planning document is the exchange’s native cryptocurrency, OKB. An obvious concern in the aftermath of FTX is any suggestion that OKB has been used as collateral or to finance any operations of OKX, as was the case with FTX’s FTT token.

Of course, the OKB exchange token hasn't been subject to anything like the iniquities of FTX’s exchange token. However, it was involved in a sudden flash crash in January 2024, after which OKX quickly offered to compensate users who had lost out. The token, which has a relatively thin trading volume and liquidity, saw 10 dormant wallets become active and begin trading just before the crash, according to Marina Khaustova, COO Crystal Intelligence, a blockchain analytics firm.

Not long after the OKB crash, OKX executives Tim Byun, the former CEO of OKcoin and head of global government relations, and Head of Product Wei Lan were let go by OKX. A source familiar with the situation said Byun was "sacrificed" following the OKB crash.

Unsurprisingly, the OKX comms protocol emphasizes that execs should “refrain from mentioning OKB and reference this only if asked.”

Media management

Another part of the puzzle is how the exchange should deal with media inquiries. Should OKX receive emails or a phone call from a journalist looking for comment about ongoing investigations, the SWAT Team and PR team should go into action to “buy time by offering up leadership schedules”

Meanwhile, the plan is “to contact key friendly publications for a parallel story to seed in a complimentary narrative to the originating story,” the document states.

“1. Push for delay 2. Confirm friendly publications 3. Asynchronously queue up internal / external comms, so we hit send as the story comes out,” it said.

OKX did not provide a comment by press time

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/25/how-to-prepare-for-a-major-compliance-failure-settlement-the-okx-approach

Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Hires Zac Prince, Former CEO and Co-Founder of BlockFi

Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Digital (GLXY) has hired Zac Prince as a managing director, according to an internal memo seen by CoinDesk.

Prince will be working closely with Galaxy's President, Chris Ferraro, to expand the company's digital assets offering.

Galaxy believes that crypto is entering a "pivotal era of transformation," and has hired Prince to help deliver the firm's strategic vision, the company said in the memo.

He joins from real estate advisory firm RE Cost Seg, where he was employed as CEO for the last year.

Prince is well known in the industry. He is the former CEO and co-founder of bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi.

Galaxy hired former Point72 chief financial officer Anthony Paquette to serve in the same role at the crypto financial services firm, it said in December.

Read more: Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Appoints Former Point72 Exec as CFO

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/25/michael-novogratz-s-galaxy-hires-zac-prince-former-ceo-and-co-founder-of-blockfi

SEC Drops Investigation Into Uniswap, Will Not File Enforcement Action

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has dropped its investigation into Uniswap Labs, the Brooklyn-based company behind the decentralized protocol of the same name, according to a Tuesday announcement from Uniswap.

Uniswap received a Wells notice — essentially, a heads-up from the regulator informing respondents of the charges the SEC is planning to bring against them — last April, accusing the decentralized exchange of operating as an unregistered securities broker and unregistered securities exchange, and of issuing an unregistered security. In subsequent blog posts and social media posts, the company and its executives defended the legality of Uniswap’s operations and pledged to fight the pending charges.

The company celebrated the SEC’s decision to drop the charges, calling it a “huge win for DeFi” in a social media post.

“We appreciate that the SEC’s new leadership is taking a close look at the pending enforcement investigations and litigations across our industry, not just our own, and has recognized that there is a more effective path to protecting American consumers. The conclusion of our investigation is not only welcome — and just — relief for Uniswap Labs, but also for the broader DeFi community of builders, users, and developers working toward a better financial system for all of us,” the company said in a Tuesday blog post.

Amanda Tuminelli, chief legal officer at the DeFi Education Fund, said in a statement to CoinDesk that the SEC’s decision to drop the investigation into Uniswap Labs “gives DeFi companies additional comfort to pivot from defending to embracing our right to build decentralized tech.”

The SEC’s decision to close its investigation into Uniswap Labs is the latest in a wave of similarly-dropped investigations into crypto companies, including Robinhood Crypto and non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea. The SEC has also agreed to drop its case against Coinbase, pending approval from the agency’s commissioners, according to the crypto exchange.

Read more: SEC Poised to Drop Coinbase Lawsuit Marking Big Moment for U.S. Crypto

The SEC is currently overhauling its approach to crypto regulation. Former Chairman Gary Gensler, known for his so-called “regulation-by-enforcement” approach to the crypto industry, stepped down in January. His replacement, Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda, has made drastic changes at the agency – including standing up a new Crypto Task Force under the leadership of crypto-friendly Commissioner Hester Peirce and disbanding the Crypto enforcement unit – signaling a new day for crypto companies in the U.S.

A representative for the SEC declined to comment.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/25/sec-drops-investigation-into-uniswap-will-not-file-enforcement-action

Germany's Centre Right Alliance Secures Most Seats in EU Nations Election

Germany's Centre Right Alliance (CDU/CSU) managed to secure the most seats in the country's parliamentary election on Sunday, suggesting a more innovation-friendly environment awaits.

Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU secured 28.52% of the vote while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured 20.8% of the vote. There are 733 seats in the German Bundestag and no party secured a majority, so a coalition will be formed.

Mark Foster, European Union policy lead at the Crypto Council for Innovation, expects that the Centre Right Alliance will likely support the European Union's approach to digital innovation, he told CoinDesk in an interview ahead of the election.

"So I don't expect a massive change overnight from the previous government to the new government in terms of either digital assets policy or digital euro, but perhaps an openness and a willingness to think about how these solutions can possibly help improve the competitiveness of the German and the European economy and bring in some jobs and growth in competition, which is clearly the overarching principle at the moment and priority for the European Commission," Foster said.

Germany's election so far has had little impact on crypto. The country, which is the European Union's largest economy, called an early election after its coalition between the Social Democrats (SDP), Free Democratic party (FDP) and Greens collapsed in November.

Though the country was late in passing legislation to enforce the European Union's bespoke Markets in Crypto Assets legislation — passing legislation days before the mandated implementation date in December — it still managed to process MiCA licenses over the past couple of weeks. And Foster doesn't expect there to be "any impact in terms of the day to day implementation of existing EU law," moving forward.

Next the freshly elected members of parliament will need to vote for the country's new chancellor and head of the federal government.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/24/germany-s-centre-right-alliance-secures-most-seats-in-eu-nations-election

Raydium’s RAY Dives 25% as Pump.Fun Appears to Test Own AMM Exchange

Solana-based token issuance platform Pump.Fun may soon be launching its own automated market maker (AMM), according to a URL connected to the site. However, there has been no public announcement yet.

AMM is a exchange system in crypto markets that makes trading easy by using a liquidity pool of usually, and at least, two tokens. Instead of matching buyers and sellers like a traditional exchange, smart contracts set the prices based on supply and demand and allow trades to be processed without a counterparty.

The “amm.pump.fun” shows a swap product in the making with a sell and buy option alongside a deposit and withdrawal function. That’s a first for Pump.Fun, which lets anyone issue a token for less than $2 in capital, after which they choose the number of tokens, theme, and meme picture to accompany it.

When the market capitalization of any token reaches $69,000, a portion of liquidity is deposited to the Solana-based exchange Raydium and burned (or when tokens are taken out of supply permanently).

Pump.Fun’s own AMM would mean tokens are no longer migrated to Raydium, or at least that’s what the market thinks, dampening sentiment for the latter’s RAY tokens. RAY is down 25% in the past 24 hours on the apparent development.

“It seems they are planning to have pump tokens graduate to their own pools instead of Raydium,” trader @trenchdiver101, who first flagged the development, said. “They can either extract more fees on Solana or have some mechanism to reward token holders.”

Though a part of Raydium's total trading activity is derived from Pump.Fun tokens, the exchange supports several other top markets — such as Solana (SOL) to stablecoins and others — contributing to its $500 million in average daily trading volumes.

As such, the product could further bump the revenues and profits of Pump.Fun, which has no token but is among the most profitable crypto applications in the past year — a rare feat in a market where businesses heavily rely on token sales to generate income.

Pump.Fun has pocketed over $550 million in total fees since Mar.2024, data shows, with $2.4 billion in trading volumes over just the past two weeks. Over 8 million tokens have been issued on the platform since its 2024 launch, with a few, such as fartcoin (FART), reaching billions of dollars in market capitalization.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/24/raydium-s-ray-dives-25-as-pump-fun-appears-to-test-own-amm-exchange

Solana Whales Increase Engagement in Bearish Options Plays on Deribit Amid SOL Meltdown and Impending Unlock

Deribit's options market for Solana's SOL token has become active, with whales engaging in bearish bets as the token's price continues to decline ahead of an impending multi-billion dollar unlock.

Last week, SOL block trades totaling $32.39 million in notional value crossed the tape on Deribit, representing nearly 25% of the total options activity of $130.74 million. The remainder of the activity comprised screen trades, according to Amberdata. That's the second-highest proportion of block trades to total activity on record.

A "block trade" in options refers to a significant, privately negotiated options transaction between two parties involving a large number of contracts. Such trades, typically associated with whale activity, are executed over-the-counter and outside the regular order book and then booked on the exchange, allowing for a minimal impact on the market prices.

Options are derivative contracts that give the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset, in this case, SOL, at a preset price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy, while a put option provides the right to sell. On Deribit, which accounts for over 85% of the global crypto options activity, one options contract represents 1 SOL.

Last week's spike in SOL block trades featured a preference for put options, which traders use to hedge against or profit from a potential price slide.

"Nearly 80% of the block-trade volume was concentrated in put contracts. Compared to only 40% puts for BTC and 37.5% puts for ETH during the same timeframe," Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at Amberdata, said.

The whale demand for put options comes as SOL's outlook appears grim following the 46% price slide to $160 in just over five weeks. The activity on the Solana blockchain, which became a go-to-place for memecoin traders last year, peaked with the launch of the TRUMP token on Jan. 17, three days before Donald Trump was inaugurated as the President of the U.S.

Since then, the number of daily transactions on Solana and the cumulative daily volume on the Solana-based decentralized exchanges has declined significantly, according to data source Artemis. That has weakened the bullish case for SOL.

Plus, the impending SOL token unlock on Jan. 1 presents a significant headwind, per Deribit's Asia Business Development Head Lin Chen.

"Solana (SOL) will have a major token unlock event on March 1, releasing 11.2 million SOL tokens, valued at approximately $2.07 billion. This represents 2.29% of the total supply. A significant portion of the unlock comes from the FTX estate and a foundation sale," Chen said.

Chen explained that the large unlock could breed market volatility as it accounts for nearly 59% of SOL's daily spot trading volume. Hence, its natural to see a lot of hedging flow in put options in anticipation of a potential extended SOL price slide.

"Many traders would also take this opportunity to long Vol[atility] to generate good yield," Chen noted.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/24/solana-whales-increase-engagement-in-bearish-options-plays-on-deribit-amid-sol-meltdown-and-impending-unlock

Bybit Closes 'ETH Gap' as Exchange Replenishes $1.4B Hole After Hack

Bybit has returned to a 1:1 backing of client assets and has fully closed the “ether gap” it faced after an unprecedented $1.4 billion hack hit the exchange late Friday.

The exchange has received 446,870 ether (ETH), worth $1.23 billion at current prices, through loans, large deposits, and ether purchases in the past two days, on-chain tracking service Lookonchain said in an X post on Monday.

Address activity suggests more than $400 million were purchased through over-the-counter trading, with another $300 million brought directly from exchanges. Nearly $300 million were sought as loans; the rest are from addresses apparently belonging to crypto funds.

ETH prices rose upto 4% over the weekend amid the apparent buying activity, but are down 2% in the past 24 hours as sentiment isn’t fully lifted.

Meanwhile, Bybit said late Sunday that all deposit and withdrawal activity had “fully recovered to normal levels — with total deposits “slightly exceeding” withdrawals as on Saturday in a sign of market confidence.

Friday’s attack targeted one of Bybit’s offline “cold” wallets, which are typically considered secure due to their lack of internet connectivity, in a heist that allowed $1.4 billion in ETH to be withdrawn.

Hackers gained control by exploiting a sophisticated method involving a manipulated user interface (UI) and URL. This allowed the attackers to alter the smart contract logic, redirecting the funds to an unidentified address. The stolen assets were then split across multiple wallets and swapped on decentralized exchanges.

Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT linked the hack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored hacking collective notorious for crypto thefts. Lazarus was behind several high-profile crypto attacks, including the $600 million Ronin Network hack in 2022, and a $230 million drain on Indian exchange WazirX in 2024.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/24/bybit-closes-eth-gap-as-exchange-amasses-usd1-2b-after-hack

Ethereum 'Roll Back' Suggestion Has Sparked Criticism. Here's Why It Won't Happen

On Friday, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was allegedly hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus group, which drained nearly $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) from the exchange.

Following the hack, Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and claiming to be a major ether (ETH) holder, wrote a post on X to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on whether he will “advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official.” Meanwhile, in an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that his team had also reached out to the Ethereum Foundation to see if it was something the network would consider, noting that such a decision should be based on what the network's community wants.

Hayes's post immediately provoked a fierce reaction from the Ethereum community, which was firm in its belief that it wouldn't happen. Some even questioned whether the BitMEX founder was joking. CoinDesk reached out to Hayes over X to clarify his comments.

Ethereum members, like the core developer teams, are vastly against “rolling back” the network because it would override core elements of decentralization. If Buterin decided on his own that it would happen, then that would be seen as the end of Ethereum’s ethos, which heavily involves various developer teams and other community members when it comes to the health and state of the blockchain.

“Rolling back the chain would give ETH no purpose. What's the point if you can just change rules,” said user @the_weso in a post on X.

Some outside the Ethereum community pointed to the 2016 DAO hack as an example when $60 million in ETH was stolen. The network went forward with a hard fork, splitting the old network into two, and the new chain continued on as Ethereum.

That hard fork was not a “rollback,” though; it was known as an “irregular state transition.” Ethereum technically can’t “roll back” the network because it relies on an account model, where accounts hold users' ETH.

At the time of the hack, developers upgraded their nodes to a new client or software. Those who didn’t upgrade their nodes were still on the old chain, which became known as Ethereum Classic.

When the nodes upgraded to the new software, the stolen ETH could move from one Ethereum account address to the next.

“The 'irregular state change' that they implemented at the time of the DAO hard fork was this: they airlifted all the ETH in the DAO smart contracts out to a refund contract that would send you 1 ETH for every 100 DAO tokens you sent in,” wrote Laura Shin of Unchained in a post on X.

Read more: Arthur Hayes Floats the Idea of Rolling Back Ethereum Network to Negate $1.4B Bybit Hack, Drawing Community Ire

source https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/02/22/ethereum-roll-back-suggestion-has-sparked-criticism-here-s-why-it-won-t-happen

Bybit Sees Over $4 Billion ‘Bank Run’ After Crypto’s Biggest Hack

Major cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has seen total outflows of over $5.5 billion after it suffered a near $1.5 billion hack that saw hackers, believed to be from North Korea’s Lazarus Group, drain its ether cold wallet.

The total assets tracked on wallets associated with the exchange plunged from around $16.9 billion to $11.2 billion at the time of writing, according to data from DeFiLlama. The exchange is now looking to understand exactly what happened.

In an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that shortly after the incident, he called for “all hands on deck” to serve their clients with processing withdrawals and responding to inquiries about what was going on.

During the session, Zhou revealed that the security breach saw the hackers make off with roughly 70% of their clients’ ether, which meant that Bybit needed to quickly secure a loan to be able to process withdrawals. Yet, Zhou found that ether wasn’t the most withdrawn token, with most users instead withdrawing stablecoin from Bybit.

The exchange, Zhou noted, has reserves to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis deepened as, in response to the incident, Safe moved to temporarily shut down its smart wallet functionalities to “ensure absolute confidence in our platform’s security.”

Safe is a decentralized custody protocol providing smart contract wallets for digital asset management. Some exchanges integrated Safe, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and has multisig functionality to enhance the security of their cold wallets.

While the exchange had reserves to back up users’ withdrawals, $3 billion worth of USDT was in a Safe wallet that had just been shut down as the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.

On social media, Safe said that while it had "not found evidence that the official Safe frontend was compromised," it was temporarily shutting down "certain functionalities" out of caution.

While Zhou and Bybit’s team were figuring out how to securely withdraw their $3 billion, withdrawals were mounting. Within two hours of the security breach, the exchange was facing requests to move over $100,000 off its platform, Zhou revealed.

Responding to the situation, Zhou told his security team to engage Safe to “find a better way to get this money out.” The team ended up developing new software with code “based on Etherscan” to verify the signatures “on a very manual level” to move the stablecoins back to their wallet and cover the withdrawal surge.

The exchange’s team had to remain up all night to be able to fulfill withdrawals, according to Zhou. As the exchange managed to move the $3 billion in stablecoin reserves, it was facing a bank run of “about 50%” of all the funds within the exchange.

Zhou said that since the incident, the exchange has moved a significant amount of funds off of Safe cold wallets and is now determining what system it will use to replace Safe.

Pushing to "Roll Back" Ethereum Was not Off the Table

Since the security breach, Bybit has engaged authorities. During the session, Zhou said that the Singaporean authorities took the issue “very seriously” and that he believes it has already been escalated with Interpol.

Blockchain analysis firms, including Chainalysis, were engaged. Zhou said, “As long as Bybit is there and continues to track [the stolen ether], I hope we can get these funds back.”

Notably, he revealed that pushing to "roll back" the Ethereum blockchain, which was suggested by some industry players on social media, including BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, had been on the table for some time if the community agreed with it.

“I had my team talking to Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there’s any recommendations they can offer to help. I do really thank all these guys on Twitter asking if there is a possibility to roll back the chain. I’m not sure what was the response on their side, but anything that would help we would try,” Zhou said.

When asked if "rolling back" the chain is even possible, Zhou responded he doesn’t know. “I’m not sure it’s a one-man decision based on the spirit of blockchain. It should be a work in process to see what the community wants,” he said.

It's worth noting that a blockchain "rollback" refers to a state change that would allow for the funds to be recovered. While rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain is technically possible, such a state change on Ethereum would be more complex, given its smart contract interactions and state-based architecture.

Nevertheless, any state change would require consensus and likely lead to a contentious hard fork, drawing criticism from the community. This would likely split the Ethereum blockchain into two networks, each with its own supporters.

As for what exactly caused the hack to occur, is still unclear. Per Zhou, Bybit’s laptops have not been compromised. He said the movements of the transaction’s signers have been scrutinized but appear to have been routine.

“We know the cause is definitely around the Safe cold wallet. Whether it’s a problem with our laptops or on Safe’s side, we don’t know.,” Zhou added.

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/22/bybit-sees-over-usd4-billion-bank-run-after-crypto-s-biggest-hack

Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025

A vast majority of Latin American cryptocurrency users—95%—plan to expand their holdings in 2025, according to a Binance Research survey of more than 10,000 investors in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

The findings show that 40.1% of respondents are expecting to buy more crypto within the next three months, 15.3% are looking to do so in the next six months, and 39.7% within 12 months. Only 4.9% have no plans to keep on investing this year.

Latin America led the world in crypto adoption in 2024, growing by 116%, according to research from payments firm Triple-A quoted in the report. The region now has 55 million cryptocurrency users, making up nearly 10% of total cryptocurrency users.

This rapid expansion has been fueled by rising asset prices, regulatory advancements, and new financial products like spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Brazil has just last week become the first country to approve a spot XRP ETF.

Market performance has also bolstered investor confidence. "Latin America is a rapidly expanding region for the crypto sector, and the results of this research reinforce what we have observed in our operations,” Binance’s regional VP for Latin America, Guilherme Nazar, said.

Binance’s research shows that half of those inquired already use cryptocurrencies for over a year, with most entering the space expecting significant returns and searching for financial freedom.

Portfolio diversification, privacy, and protecting their money were also quoted as motives to invest in the space. Read more: How a $115M Crypto Fund With Big Ambitions Plans to Invest In Latin America

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/22/binance-research-survey-shows-95-of-latin-american-crypto-users-plan-to-buy-more-in-2025

Why The SEC Needs to Allow Staking in Exchange-Traded Products

For far too long, the U.S. has been falling behind the rest of the world on staking policy. Now, in just the first 30 days of the Trump Administration, staking has been mentioned in Congressional hearings, listed as a top priority by the SEC’s newly created crypto task force and is today the focus of a bipartisan letter from lawmakers challenging the previous SEC’s stance on its inclusion in exchange-traded products (ETPs). Many in the digital asset sector celebrated when the first spot ether ETFs were approved in September of last year. It was a giant leap forward for the second-largest cryptocurrency, achieving legitimacy in the eyes of U.S. regulators. But there has been one glaring omission within these financial products: the ability to stake the held assets and profit by doing so. 

Now a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Steve Daines (R-Montana), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) is leading the way to correct that. In a letter delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, they are challenging the SEC's directive to exclude protocol staking in ETPs, highlighting how this position could undermine both investor protections and the competitiveness of U.S. markets.

The SEC’s prohibition on staking within ETPs is based on a faulty understanding of how staking works on proof-of-stake networks like Ethereum. Staking is not an investment product in itself. Rather, it is a fundamental technical requirement for securing and validating transactions on proof-of-stake networks. When token holders stake their assets, they contribute to the network's security, and in doing so earn rewards generated by the protocol itself — not from any centralized authority.

International competitiveness

The SEC's directive to spot ether ETP issuers to exclude staking raises serious concerns about America's competitive position in global digital asset markets. While the United States hesitates, other major financial centers including Switzerland, Canada, Germany and Australia have embraced staking in their digital asset ETPs, recognizing its integral role in network security and operational stability. Just last month, the U.K. issued a statutory instrument acknowledging that arrangements for qualifying crypto asset staking do not amount to a collective investment scheme, reinforcing its importance in securing and maintaining blockchain networks.

Because staking is essential for securing proof-of-stake networks, it also means that if there were no one staking their ether, then all of the assets within these ETPs would be at risk. This means that, perversely, the SEC has forced American investors into a position where their investments are only protected by assets held in other jurisdictions.

Crucially, the impact of these regulations extends beyond just the Ethereum blockchain, but applies to possible future ETPs of other networks that also use proof-of-stake such as Solana, Avalanche and Polkadot. As the digital asset sector grows, the impact of this misguided regulation will only deepen.

Getting this regulation wrong hurts both American investors and the U.S. economy. Either investors accept domestic products without staking and the associated rewards, limiting their financial returns, or they seek exposure through off-shore alternatives, driving capital offshore and out of U.S. stock exchanges. Without staking, ether ETP holders gradually lose their relative network ownership position due to the inflationary nature of staking rewards.

This economic reality makes U.S. products less competitive and less attractive to investors seeking comprehensive exposure to the Ethereum ecosystem. Even more troubling, this outcome appears to contradict the SEC's core mission of investor protection, likely pushing investors toward investment vehicles in other jurisdictions that may not meet the investor protection standards available to investors in the U.S.

The technical risks associated with staking, when managed by sophisticated validators, are minimal and well-understood. The often-cited "slashing risk" — a penalty mechanism for dishonest validation attempts — has affected just 0.001 percent of staked ether to date. This data suggests that the SEC's cautious stance may be disproportionate to the actual risks involved.

What’s at stake

As we await the SEC's response to the important questions raised by Congress, American investors continue to be at a distinct disadvantage. The path forward requires a balanced approach that recognizes staking for what it is — a technical mechanism for network security — while ensuring there is appropriate oversight when it is offered within regulated investment products.

As the letter rightly points out, while only Congress can create a comprehensive regulatory framework, the SEC has the authority to permit staking in ETPs. Doing so would align with both the agency’s mandate to protect investors and the goal of maintaining U.S. leadership in global financial markets.

The bipartisan Congressional letter to SEC Commissioners Uyeda and Peirce endorsing Protocol Staking in Digital Asset ETPs is a significant milestone for investors – both crypto native and institutional. With Uyeda having criticized what he has called the “weaponization” of the SEC’s enforcement functions and crypto advocate Paul Atkins being nominated to take over the role of SEC Chair, we have a rare opportunity to make progress on one of the most common sense issues in the digital asset landscape.

It’s beyond time for the SEC to assume a leadership position when it comes to protocol staking, which powers the digital asset sector. This befits the aspirations of the American economy and the Americans who rely on it.

source https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2025/02/20/why-the-sec-needs-to-allow-staking-in-exchange-traded-products

U.S. Senators Push for SEC to Rethink Crypto Staking in Exchange Funds

Staking should potentially be added to the menu for crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a bipartisan group of U.S. senators argued in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.

Issuers of crypto ETFs had originally planned to include the staking feature in their fund offerings, but the SEC, under its past leadership, had balked at the idea. The agency, run by Chair Gary Gensler until the administration of President Donald Trump arrived last month, had previously pursued enforcement actions against firms such as Kraken, arguing staking amounted to an unregistered securities offering.

The senators' letter — backed by Cynthia Lummis, the Republican chair of a Senate subcommittee that focuses on digital assets — calls for reconsidering the practice, which involves locking up digital tokens to support blockchain operations in return for rewards. Protocol staking is key to the security of ecosystems such as Ethereum, supporters contend.

"We encourage the SEC to consider the potential benefit to investors from allowing protocol staking in certain digital asset [exchange-traded products]," the letter to SEC Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda argued. 

Other Republicans joined Lummis in the correspondence, and so did two Democrats: her usual crypto partner, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and also Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Read More: Staking in Ethereum ETFs Might Be a Question of When, Not If

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/02/20/u-s-senators-push-for-sec-to-ok-crypto-staking-in-exchange-funds

Crypto Daybook Americas: Ye Adds to Memecoin Turmoil as Broader Market Languishes

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Cryptocurrency prices are rising after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s former crypto enforcement unit transitioned into the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit and amid dovish comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic.

Renaming the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit is significant because it shows the agency is moving away from its crypto focus that often led to accusations of regulation by enforcement and legal battles with major industry participants.

“In the near to medium term, clearer regulations will likely boost institutional participation, leading to improvements in market infrastructure,” BackPack founder and CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk. Bitcoin is now above $98,000 after adding 1.2% in 24 hours, while the broader CoinDesk 20 Index rose 1.35%.

Yet, volatility is still relatively low. "These environments may feel slow and frustrating, but they rarely persist for long — volatility tends to mean revert,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake O told CoinDesk.

With tensions between the U.S. and its European allies growing, investors are hoping Germany's election on Sunday will lead to a stable coalition government that will push out economic reforms to stimulate growth and boost defense spending. Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a positive result could lead to a more risk-on approach.

Open interest has already moved up ahead of the election. Still, the crypto market lacks positive catalysts in the near term, JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a report.

In fact, the market is nearing backwardation — where spot prices rise above futures prices — in a “negative development” that’s “indicative of demand weakness” by institutional investors using regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure to the market. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) becomes the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging platform Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.

Feb. 24: At epoch 115968, testing of Ethereum’s Pecta upgrade on the Holesky testnet starts.

Feb. 25, 9:00 a.m.: Ethereum Foundation research team AMA on Reddit.

Feb. 27: Solana-based L2 Sonic SVM (SONIC) mainnet launch (“Mobius”).

Macro

Feb. 21, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases February’s (Flash) U.S. Purchasing Managers' Index (Flash) reports.

Composite PMI Prev. 52.7

Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.2

Services PMI Est. 53 vs. Prev. 52.9

Feb. 24, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases eurozone's (final) consumer inflation data for January.

Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.7% vs. Prev. 2.7%

Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.4%

Earnings

Feb. 24: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, $-0.18

Feb. 25: ​​Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, $-0.17

Feb. 25: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.09

Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, $-0.13

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Sky DAO is discussing withdrawing a portion of the Smart Burn Engine’s LP tokens to stop malicious actors from acquiring them.

DYdX DAO is discussing increasing the limit on the maximum notional value of liquidations that can occur within a given block on the dYdX protocol to enhance the speed and efficiency of risk reduction during liquidations.

Unlocks

Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.6 million.

Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.92% of circulating supply worth $34.23 million.

Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $81.07 million.

Token Launches

Conferences:

CoinDesk's Consensus to take place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)

Feb. 24: RWA London Summit 2025

Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)

March 2-3: Crypto Expo Europe (Bucharest, Romania)

March 8: Bitcoin Alive (Sydney, Australia)

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

With a botched launch from Argentine president Javier Milei and a token proposed by self-professed Nazi Kanye West, now known as Ye, this week in memecoin land has been one to forget.

Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter said the craze is "unquestionably over," a view that might be cemented by a report revealing that West is planning to introduce YZY token — and will own 70% of the supply.

The rest of the crypto market remains relatively unperturbed by the potential demise of the sector: ETH and LTC are up by 3% this week whilst TRX has risen by 7.7% as liquidity appears to be rotating from speculative tokens back to more utilitarian projects.

NEAR leads the pack on Friday, surging by 11% after announcing the "first truly autonomous" AI agents. The agents will be able to autonomously own, trade and manage assets on-chain.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC open interest on centralized exchanges rose nearly 5% to $37.3 billion in the past 24 hours. This, coupled with the reversal in funding from positive to negative, suggests a potential short squeeze scenario. Short liquidations have dominated the futures markets over that period, nearing a total of $110 million compared with $6.11 million in longs.

Among the assets with over $100 million in open interest, Maker DAO, Virtuals Protcol and Artificial Super Intelligence saw the highest one-day increase, rising by 39.2%, 35.5% and 28.00%, respectively.

Among the options instruments, the call option on BTC with a strike price of $99,000 and expiring Feb. 22 has traded with the most volume on Deribit. The next most popular options instrument is the call on BTC with a strike price of $108,000, expiring on Feb. 28. The action hints at the optimistic short-term sentiment in the market over the past couple of days.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 0.28% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $98,632.42 (24hrs: +1.35%)

ETH is up 2.09% at $2,800.02 (24hrs: +2.15%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.92% to 3,298.29 (24hrs: +1.49%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.99%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0010% (1.0961% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.29% at 106.68

Gold is down 0.31% at $2,929.76/oz

Silver is down 0.12% to $32.91/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +0.26% at 38,776.94

Hang Seng closed +3.99% at 23.477.92

FTSE is up 0.20% at 8,680.19

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.18% at 5,471.08

DJIA closed Thursday down -1.01% at 44,176.65

S&P 500 closed -0.43% at 6,117.52

Nasdaq closed -0.47% at 19,962.36

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.44% at 25,514.08

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.76% at 2,480.21

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was down 2 bps at 4.49%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,138.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.13% at 22,170.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.10% to 44,309

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.02 (-0.35%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02842 (2.01%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 807 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $54.92

Total Fees: 5.34 BTC / $526,892

CME Futures Open Interest: 178,500 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 33.4 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.49%

Technical Analysis

TAO has emerged as one of the strongest-performing assets over the past week, fueled by the launch of the dynamicTAO upgrade. This momentum has propelled the price above all key exponential moving averages on the daily time frame, signaling renewed strength.

Adding to the bullish sentiment, the price action has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern.

TAO’s recent listing on Coinbase provided an extra catalyst, driving its price up nearly 20% to a high of $495 since the initial announcement.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $323.92 (+1.65%), up 0.37% at $324.85 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $256.59 (-0.80%), up 0.86% at $258.80

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$25.65 (+1.30%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.95 (+1.08%), up 0.38% at $16.01

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.60 (+0.35%), up 0.52% at $11.66

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $11.84 (-1.50%), up 0.51% at $11.90

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.06 (+1.72%), up 0.80% at $10.14

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.49 (-1.27%), down 0.31% at $22.42

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.24 (+0.04%), unchanged

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.80 (-1.26%), down 2.72% at $46.50

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$364.8 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.63 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.169 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$13.1 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.16 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.807 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Bitcoin's price action has triggered short liquidations totaling $97.9 million at the $98,890 level, according to CoinGlass. The next key resistance levels, based on the liquidation heat map, are $99,185 and $99,332, where liquidations worth $65.2 million and $67.9 million, respectively, are clustered.

On the downside, significant long liquidations are positioned at $97,415 and $97,194, amounting to $69.3 million and $70.7 million, respectively. These key levels highlight potential areas of volatility as bitcoin navigates its current price range.

While You Were Sleeping

Crypto Market Faces Weak Demand, Needs Trump Initiatives to Kick In, JPMorgan Says (CoinDesk): JPMorgan said CME futures data reveals weak institutional interest in crypto, with any pro-crypto initiatives from the Trump administration unlikely to emerge until the second half of the year.

South African Firm to Amass Bitcoin Hoard in First for Continent (Bloomberg): Altvest Capital adopted bitcoin to be a treasury reserve asset. It bought one BTC and is considering a $10 million share sale to expand its digital holdings.

Block Shares Fall on Profit, Revenue Miss (CNBC): At its Q4 2024 earnings call, Block (XYZ) executives commented on Proto, their bitcoin mining initiative. CFO Amrita Ahuja said the project should drive growth in the second half.

Japan Yields Fall as Ueda Warns BOJ Can Step In to Smooth Market (Bloomberg): Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda vowed to buy government bonds if long-term yields spike. Earlier, 10-year yields hit 1.455% — the most since 2009.

U.K. Retail Sales Rise for First Time in Five Months (The Wall Street Journal): In January, retail spending in the U.K. rose 1.7% from December, led by a 5.6% jump in food store sales as more people ate at home.

New Microsoft Chip Shortens Timeline to Make Bitcoin Quantum-Resistant: River (Cointelegraph): Bitcoin-focused financial services firm River said Microsoft’s Majorana — though not yet a threat — could reach a 1-million-qubit scale by 2027–2029, potentially enabling attacks on the blockchain.

In the Ether

source https://www.coindesk.com/daybook-us/2025/02/21/crypto-daybook-americas-ye-adds-to-memecoin-turmoil-as-broader-market-languishes

Bitcoin Treasury Bandwagon Reaches Africa as Altvest Jumps on Board

Altvest Capital (ALV) became the first listed company in Africa to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as a strategic treasury asset, the company said in a press release Friday.

Altvest said it bought one bitcoin for its strategic treasury, following a path set by Strategy (MSTR) in the U.S. and Metaplanet (3350) in Japan.

The Johannesburg-based company paid 1.8 million rand ($98,200) for just over 1 BTC, and said it doesn't plan to buy alternative cryptocurrencies.

Altvest said it sees "bitcoin as the only digital asset that meets its stringent investment criteria for a long-term treasury allocation."

Corporates are increasingly adding bitcoin as a strategic treasury asset. Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy) pioneered the a move, starting to buy BTC in 2020. It now holds 478,740 bitcoin, worth more than $47 billion at current prices.

The South African investment firm said the initiative to acquire bitcoin was "focused on preserving shareholder value, mitigating currency depreciation risks, and gaining exposure to a globally recognized store of value."

Since Tokyo-based Metaplanet started buying bitcoin in April last year, it has acquired 2,031 tokens worth nearly $200 million and its shares became the best-performing Japanese equity over the past 12 months, with a gain of 3,900%. Earlier this month, investment bank KBW started coverage of Strategy with an outperform rating and a $560 price target. The shares are currently $323.92.

Altvest shares were trading more than 9% lower at 590 rand at publication time.

Read more: Zoom Communications Should Embrace Bitcoin as Treasury Asset, Eric Semler Says

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/21/bitcoin-treasury-bandwagon-reaches-africa-as-altvest-jumps-on-board

Crypto Market Faces Weak Demand, Needs Trump Initiatives to Kick In, JPMorgan Says

The cryptocurrency market is lacking positive catalysts in the near term, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a report Wednesday.

The correction in crypto markets in recent months has seen both bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures near backwardation, which is a sign of lower demand, the report said. Backwardation occurs when the spot price of an asset is higher than the price trading in the futures market.

"This is a negative development and indicative of demand weakness by those institutional investors that use regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure into these two cryptocurrencies," analysts led Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

If demand for bitcoin and ether futures is healthy, the futures cost more than the spot price, and the curve is said to be in contango, the bank noted.

When demand slows and price expectations soften, the futures curve moves towards backwardation, the bank added.

This weakness in demand could be due to a number of reasons.

Positive crypto initiatives by Trump's new administration are more likely to kick in during the second half of the year, the bank said, and this means institutional investors are likely taking profits due to a lack of short-term catalysts.

Lower demand from systematic and momentum-driven funds, such as CTAs, has also affected bitcoin and ether futures, JPMorgan added.

Read more: U.S. Crypto Task Force to Focus on Delivering National Bitcoin Reserve: Bernstein

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/21/crypto-market-faces-weak-demand-needs-trump-initiatives-to-kick-in-jpmorgan-says

Ye, Self-Proclaimed 'Nazi' Who Said 'Coins Prey on Fans,' Plans YZY Token

HONG KONG—Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who has repeatedly called himself a "Nazi" in recent weeks, plans to launch a crypto token, according to three sources close to the project.

The token, YZY, is designed to help Ye side-step platforms like Shopify that have cut ties with him in response to his hateful rhetoric.

Crypto, with its censorship-resistant ethos, offers Ye an alternative avenue for cashing in on his celebrity status: Seventy percent of the YZY token, named after Ye's Yeezy clothing brand, will be reserved for Ye personally, with just 10% allocated for liquidity provisioning and 20% for investors.

Ye's foray into crypto comes on the heels of years of public controversy that have strained his business empire. In 2022, Ye was dropped by Adidas, Balenciaga and his talent agency after making a series of antisemitic comments, including praising Adolf Hitler in a live interview and tweeting inflammatory rhetoric about Jewish people and other groups.

The fallout continued this year when Ye, after again calling himself a Nazi on X, listed a T-shirt bearing a swastika on the Yeezy website, leading e-commerce platform Shopify to shut down his online store.

YZY is being packaged as the official currency of Yeezy and will be accepted as payment on his website.

CoinDesk learned about the token through an email from Hussein Lalani, a person with a yeezy.com email address who identified himself as Yeezy's chief financial officer. After sending a document describing the token unsolicited, Lalani requested that CoinDesk hold off on publication and agree to an "embargo." CoinDesk did not agree to the embargo, and three sources close to the project authenticated the document.

Lalani did not respond to further requests for comment.

The YZY token was initially set to go for sale on Yeezy's website on Thursday at 6:00 p.m., but the launch was delayed to Friday, according to a team member who asked not to be identified for fear of associating publicly with the project.

Following TRUMP

There have been murmurings of a potential Ye token since earlier this month, after the rapper teased that he had tried to contact Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

Ye later posted that he was “not doing a coin” despite someone offering him $2 million to do so. He added: “Coins prey on the fans with hype.”

Sources close to the YZY team told CoinDesk that Ye aimed to emulate Donald Trump’s TRUMP meme coin, which the president launched two days before his second inauguration. Trump raised eyebrows for his similarly massive insider-ownership distribution: 80% of TRUMP is currently held by CIC Digital, a company with ties to the president.

Ye, too, wanted an 80% ownership stake but was negotiated down to 70%, an additional source close to the project who asked not to be identified told CoinDesk. Should Ye's token achieve even a fraction of TRUMP's success, his stake could still be worth many millions of dollars.

'The Milei thing'

YZY enters an already saturated market of celebrity-driven crypto projects, many of which have been accused of exploiting fan loyalty without offering tangible utility. In many cases, these tokens see a short-lived price surge driven by hype before crashing, leaving retail investors holding the bag.

Centralized ownership allocation only adds to the risk of sudden price drops. According to the unsolicited YZY press release, Ye’s 70% YZY stake is structured through a multi-phase vesting schedule — some coins are locked for up to 12 months, meaning they cannot be sold until then — though critics argue that such insider-heavy allocations still favor founders over retail investors.

Just this week, Argentina became enmeshed in a political crisis after a meme coin endorsed by President Javier Milei, LIBRA, turned out to be a "pump-and-dump" scheme, triggering public outrage and calls for impeachment.

The source close to YZY told CoinDesk that the token's delay comes as its team ponders whether it's still "too close to the Milei thing."

source https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/02/21/kanye-west-self-proclaimed-nazi-who-said-coins-prey-on-fans-plans-yzy-token

CoinDesk Indices Launches CoinDesk 100, Memecoin Index in Industry Boost

HONG KONG - CoinDesk Indices launched two index products tracking the price gyrations of memecoins and the top hundred tokens by market capitalization, meeting demand from institutional and professional investors who seek upside in different crypto sectors, the firm announced at Consensus Hong Kong.

The CoinDesk Memecoin Index will track the largest fifty memecoins by market capitalization — a list that includes dogecoin (DOGE), shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI), among others — while the CoinDesk 100 serves as a single benchmark for the top hundred tokens by market cap.

“CoinDesk Memecoin Index responds to traders' need for liquidity and volatility while the CoinDesk 100 provides one-stop access to the most liquid tokens,” said Chris Tyrer, VP, head of institutional at Bullish.

“We are thrilled to continue providing our clients access to the broader digital asset landscape, complementing these indices with our robust regulatory framework," he added.

The memecoin index is equal-weighted and will be rebalanced monthly, ensuring the representation of emerging and established tokens. Similarly, the CoinDesk 100 Index is market cap-weighted and provides a single reference point for structured products, ETFs, and risk management strategies.

Crypto exchange Bullish has listed perpetual futures on both indices, allowing traders to gain exposure to these benchmarks with deep liquidity and around-the-clock trading.

This launch builds on the success of the CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 perpetuals, which have collectively driven over $13.5 billion in volume, with the CoinDesk 80 index perpetual future trading millions daily since January 2025.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/20/coindesk-indices-launches-coindesk-100-memecoin-index-in-industry-boost

Memecoin Craze Is 'Unquestionably Over' as Crypto Heads Towards Maturation, Nic Carter Says

The era of memecoins as a supposedly fair trading opportunity is "unquestionably over," according to Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures.

In a post on X, Carter argued that memecoins—tokens with little to no utility beyond speculative trading—were initially attractive because they appeared to offer an even playing field for retail investors. However, with recent scandals such as LIBRA coin, the market has been overtaken by insiders, prelaunch deals, and bot-driven trading, leaving everyday traders at a disadvantage.

“The entire premise of memecoins was that they were ‘fair launch’ opportunities where retail had just as good a shot as funds and VCs,” Carter wrote. “That was exposed as a lie—the casino wasn’t fair.”

Carter pointed to the launch of Milei's LIBRA coin, which opened at a $1 billion market cap before briefly spiking to $4 billion, as an example of how insiders now dominate the market. Such unfair launches, he said, have turned memecoins into a casino where the house overwhelmingly wins.

Read more: Libra Token’s Co-Creator Claimed He Paid Argentinian President Milei’s Sister

While Carter thinks that the recent trading frenzy that started since the U.S. President Donald Trump started his TRUMP memecoin is over, he did note that the industry isn't going to disappear. Rather, there will still likely be a few new token launches and some winners, but the "meta is done."

As confidence in memecoins fades, Carter expects regulators to take action against insider trading in the sector. “Just because memecoins probably aren’t securities doesn’t mean there’s no liability associated with trading on inside information,” he said, predicting that blockchain transaction histories will lead to future law enforcement actions.

'What maturation looks like'

Looking ahead, Carter believes the market will shift toward more sustainable and fair token launches.

High pre-launch valuations have become less attractive, and projects are adapting by offering lower initial valuations to attract buyers. Platforms like Echo, which enforce accreditation and KYC, are likely to gain popularity for prelaunch fundraising, helping projects distribute tokens more fairly.

Meanwhile, Carter expects increased legitimacy in DeFi tokens. With the SEC crafting clearer rules for token issuance, he sees a future where tokens can openly generate and return capital to users.

“The trade of the next few years is simply assessing the fundamentals of these tokens and buying those that trade at reasonable valuations relative to their real or implied cashflows,” he said.

While some traders may lament the end of the memecoin gold rush, Carter argues that the market is simply maturing. “The pain of disillusionment is real, but ridding ourselves of the cancerous memecoin sector—which was in hindsight tremendously unfair—is a good development overall,” he wrote.

Read more: Will Argentinian President Milei's Crypto 'Fiasco' Be a Deathblow for Memecoin Craze? Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/02/19/memecoin-craze-is-unquestionably-over-as-crypto-heads-towards-maturation-nic-carter-says