In this week’s crypto highlights, we explore the price movements of BTC, DOGE, NEAR, and FTM. Additionally, this recap includes other notable industry news items that occurred over the last seven days. Without further ado, let’s dive into the latest market developments.
Market spotlight: Bitcoin moved above $69,000 in a moment
There is no universal Bitcoin price, and as such there are certain differences between platforms. Depending on which site you use to check it, there may be conflicting reports as to whether Bitcoin recently updated its all-time high price.
A super difficult eye test: look at the image below, and determine if Bitcoin reached a new high on CEX.IO.
The answer is yes. However, it happened by a very tiny margin, and one might need a magnifying glass, or significantly zoom in on the chart, to find the difference.
In the few hours after the asset moved above $69,000, its price dropped by almost 10%, then rebounded back to $66,000. Trying to account for the situation, there were jokes that some crypto enthusiasts just wanted to sell at $69,420 (meme amount) for fun.
Nevertheless, Bitcoin had a massive rally over the last month, gaining over $20,000, or more than 50%. Here are some of the potential catalysts behind this jump:
- Soaring ETF inflows — U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recently set record trading volumes nearly every day. In addition, inflows exceeded $500 million in five out of six last trading days. BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, managed to amass over $10 billion in BTC in just seven weeks, which made it the fastest-growing ETF in history.
- Supply shock claims — Some crypto enthusiasts spread the narrative that multiple over-the-counter (OTC) desks, as well as the retail-focused CashApp, ran out of BTC. Many met this speculation with skepticism, and called it misinformation. In any case, as Bitcoin approaches halving, the impression that supply shock could be a price driver remains, especially amid the recent surge in ETF inflows.
However, there are signs that a price correction, or consolidation, might soon follow:
- The Crypto Fear & Greed Index hit 90, suggesting that the market could be overheated.
- According to Glassnode data, BTC in accumulation addresses have been declining for the first time since Q1 2023.
- Kaiko reported an imbalance in order books, which indicates the potential building of limit orders for selling an asset.
In addition, a textbook version of the cup formed on a weekly chart, which suggests a potential formation of the cup and handle pattern. The handle means a slight downward or sideways slope with decreased volume, which follows the U-shaped cup. Once the handle is formed, the asset typically reestablishes upward movement. The 0.382 Fibonacci point could act as a potential target for the handle formation.
However, if the price manages to update the all-time in the coming weeks, and sustain above it, it could potentially invalidate the cup and handle pattern. March is historically beneficial for Bitcoin, showing 12% average monthly gains, while Bitcoin’s price tends to rally after reaching an all-time high.
Noteworthy market events
Gemini Earn customers will reportedly receive 100% of their assets
It seems that the Gemini vs. Genesis drama over the Earn product is about to reach its final season.
Gemini settled with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), agreeing to reimburse Earn customers with at least $1.1 billion. As part of the agreement, Gemini will allocate $40 million to Genesis, the service provider facilitating Earn’s operations, to support its ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. In addition, the crypto exchange will pay a $37 million fine to NYDFS for various compliance failures.
“Gemini commits to working through the bankruptcy process to ensure that Earn customers make a full recovery of their virtual currency,” NYDFS said in a statement.
According to the Gemini Earn page, if the decision is approved by the bankruptcy court, all Earn users will receive 100% of their digital assets back in kind. Furthermore, Gemini also promised that users will receive “any appreciation of assets since they lent them into the Earn program.”
Binance faced regulatory troubles in Nigeria
On February 21, Bayo Onanuga, adviser to Nigeria’s president, called for a ban on Binance and other crypto exchanges. He stated that they contributed to the manipulation of the local currency, the Nigerian naira, whose value fell by almost 70% over the past few months. The same day, Binance users in Nigeria reported difficulty accessing the exchange.
Shortly afterward, two Binance executives arrived in Nigeria to deal with the block of the platform’s website in the country. On February 28, they were reportedly arrested.
After these events, there were reports that Nigeria demanded a $10 billion fine from Binance. However, a Nigerian government representative called it a misquotation about the platform’s harm to the local economy. The Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes also summoned Binance CEO Richard Teng, to address concerns about terrorism financing and money laundering.
Following all this, Binance decided to cease Nigerian naira operations through March 8.
L2 network Blast launched its mainnet
When Ethereum’s layer-2 (L2) network, Blast, announced early access in November 2023, it became an instant hit. The platform attracted over $40 million in the first hours after the bridge launch, and managed to accumulate over $2.3 billion in the following months. However, some called it a Ponzi scheme, with “unsustainable” returns, and “suspicious” invite rewards.
Initially, there was also no withdrawal functionality, but the project clarified that it would arrive after the mainnet launch. And, on February 29, Blast’s mainnet went live, unlocking deposited crypto funds.
According to DeFiLlama, there was a massive $1.6 billion drop in total value locked (TVL) following the mainnet launch, fueling concerns about the project’s viability. However, according to Coindesk, most of the funds were simply moved to a new address associated with the Blast network, not withdrawn from the platform entirely.
Tether launched a recovery tool to migrate USDT between blockchains
On March 4, Tether announced the launch of its blockchain recovery plan to ensure stable access to USDT, in case of disruptions faced by one of 14 currently supported networks. According to the announcement, users would be able to receive their USDT on another network, after verifying ownership of their addresses on an unresponsive blockchain.
The process involves cryptographically signing a migration request. Tether said that this feature is supported for popular browser extension wallets, and hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor.
One sentence news
- Telegram plans to launch an ad revenue-sharing platform, built on the TON blockchain.
- Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo reportedly started offering spot Bitcoin ETFs to clients, while Morgan Stanley is considering adding them to its brokerage platform.
- German stock exchange giant Deutsche Boerse launched a crypto spot trading platform, Deutsche Börse Digital Exchange (DBDX), which is focused on institutional clients.
- Uniswap introduced limit orders, and announced the launch of its browser-based self-custodial crypto wallet.
- The Delta hardfork was successfully deployed, significantly reducing fees across Optimism-based chains.
- Spot Bitcoin ETF issuer VanEck entered the NFT space, with the launch of its own marketplace and digital assets platform.
Notable price performances
DOGE price reached the highest point since January 2022
Memecoins were some of the best-performing crypto assets over the last few weeks. As a result of this rally, some lower-cap memecoins such as dogwifhat (WIF) and Floki (FLOKI) managed to enter the top 100 digital assets by market cap. Some viewed this new memecoin mania as an early sign of a potential altcoin season.
The DOGE price temporarily showed a more than 70% weekly gain, and reached $0.21, which is the highest point in more than two years. However, DOGE’s bullish momentum, as well as that of other memecoins, has recently started to calm.
The Volume Oscillator (VO) approached a zero level on a daily chart, while the RSI formed a bullish divergence on lower timeframes. This suggests that a price consolidation, or even correction, has the potential to follow.
NEAR price took advantage of a new AI token rally
Two weeks ago, we mentioned that AI tokens saw a new wave of optimism amid OpenAI’s Sora release, and Nvidia’s stock performance. This time, we note that many of them experienced double-digit gains, amid the anticipation of Nvidia’s AI-focused GTC24 conference. Some crypto projects confirmed their participation, including Near Protocol’s CEO Illia Polosukhin as a speaker.
As a result, NEAR’s price jumped by over 20% in a day, showing a more than 40% weekly increase. The 20-day EMA currently acts as dynamic support, meaning the asset might retest it if there is fading bullish momentum.
FTM price jumped following a legal action against Multichain
In July 2023, Multichain experienced an exploit, which resulted in a total loss of $210 million across various blockchains, with Fantom claiming one-third of that amount. Following this event, the Fantom Foundation filed a lawsuit against Multichain, and, in January 2024, a Singaporean court granted a default judgment ruling in Fantom’s favor.
According to a Fantom Foundation blog post, the organization is now taking legal action to liquidate Multichain, and recover assets lost in the exploit. Fantom said the court’s judgment is associated only with its own losses, but it plans to use this legal victory to pave a path for all users to pursue compensation from Multichain.
This helped the FTM price to surge by over 70% in a week, becoming one of the top climbers.
Tune in next week, and every week, for the latest CEX.IO crypto highlights. For more information, head over to the Exchange to check current prices, or stop by CEX.IO University to continue expanding your crypto knowledge.
Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Not investment or financial advice. Seek professional advice. Digital assets involve risk. Do your own research.