By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
The big news of the last 24 hours is that the Fed, the world’s most powerful central bank, is unlikely to provide a meaningful bullish catalyst in the near term, and markets are reacting negatively.
As sentiment weakens, capital is flowing not only out of altcoins, but also out of bitcoin and in stablecoins, which are essentially tokenized versions of the US dollar.
The Fed kept US interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, explicitly warning of a high degree of uncertainty and giving no hint of what the inflation-activity balance might look like after the Iran war-led oil price surge.
Bitcoin dipped below $70,000 early today and is now down 1% since midnight UTC, extending the decline from nearly $76,000 earlier this week. The CoinDesk 20 index and major tokens such as ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) are following BTC’s lead.
Bitcoin’s dominance also declined, falling to 58.7% from 59.4% in three days. In other words, its share of the overall crypto market has fallen with its price, a sign that even the largest cryptocurrency is seeing capital outflows. Traditionally, its share would rise during market slides as investors rotated into BTC from alternative cryptocurrencies or altcoins.
This time they rotate to stablecoins. The world’s leading dollar-pegged tokens, USDT and USDC, share of the total crypto market value has increased to 7.76% from 7% and from 3% to 3.35% respectively.
The behavior is a sign that investors are feeling more confident in dollar equivalents, understandably so, as the Fed’s uncertainty has left financial markets reeling from oil price volatility. The energy market appears broken, with the Strait of Hormuz disrupted, leading to wild, erratic energy import bills worldwide, which will ultimately increase inflation.
The market remains constructive at the top, fragile below and still far more dependent on liquidity and positioning than on a broad expansion in conviction, according to agent trading platform Nansen.
“Across all themes, the same market structure continues to emerge: Capital remains selective,” Nicolai Søndergaard, an analyst at Nansen, said in an email.
“Central banks are no longer a direct upward catalyst for all crypto, institutional inflows support the core of the market rather than the full risk curve, prediction markets are capturing attention faster than they build depth, and altcoins still lack the breadth that usually defines a true risk-on phase,” he added.
In traditional markets, the dollar index looked set to extend Wednesday’s sharp rally above 100 and futures tied to the S&P 500 fell, both symptoms of growing risk aversion. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- March 19: Walrus (WAL) deadline for Tusky users to migrate their data.
- Macro
- 19 March at 8.30am: US initial jobless claims for week ending March 14 estimated at 215,000 (previously 213,000)
- 19 March at 8.30: US Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index for March (previous 16.3)
- 19 March at 10:00am: US new home sales for January estimated at 730,000 (Previous 745,000)
- 19 March at 4.30pm: Fed balance sheet for week ending March 18 (Prev $6.65T)
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
- March 19: Gemini Space Station (GEMI), after market, -$0.91
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- Cratos DAO votes to extend the current default mobile app reward deadline by one month to April 30, 2026. Voting ends March 19.
- Unlocks
- The token is launched
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Market movements
- BTC is down 0.94% as of 16 ET Wednesday at $70,240.69 (24 hours: -4.92%)
- ETH is down 0.3% to $2,177.57 (24h: -5.85%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 0.11% to 2,055.04 (24h: -4.66%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 1 bps to 2.74%
- BTC funding rate is at -0.0024% (-2.5754% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.10% to 100.12
- Gold futures are down 2.73% at $4,689.99
- Silver futures are down 5.03% at $71.55
- The Nikkei 225 closed down 3.38% to 53,372.53
- The Hang Seng closed up 2.02% at 25,500.58
- The FTSE 100 is down 1.90% to 10,109.91
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 2.12% to 5,615.49
- The DJIA closed Wednesday down 1.63% at 46,225.15
- The S&P 500 closed up 1.36% at 6,624.70
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.46% at 22,152.42
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 1.87% at 32,312.67
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.57% at 3,497.26
- The US 10-year Treasury yield is up 6 bps to 4.26%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures rose 0.74% to 6,674.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures rose 0.78% to 24,625.25
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.66% to 46,539.00
Bitcoin statistics
- BTC Dominance: 58.68% (-0.25%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03099 (0.22%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 922 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $30.72
- Total Fees: 2.62 BTC / $189,559
- CME Futures open interest: 117,410 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 15 oz.
- BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 4.68%
Technical Analysis
- The chart shows bitcoin’s daily price swings in candlestick format since the end of 2025.
- Prices have fallen after examining the upper end of the channel identified by trend lines connecting prominent highs and lows since early February.
- A firm move past the upper end would confirm a bullish breakout. Conversely, a move below the lower end will signal a resumption of the broader downtrend.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Wednesday at $202.29 (–3.78%), -0.94% at $200.38 in premarket
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $8.92 (–3.46%), -1.01% at $8.83
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.10 (–3.95%), +0.28% at $14.14
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.35 (–0.43%), -0.55% at $16.26
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.88 (–2.27%), -1.32% at $9.75
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $21.58 (–8.17%), -1.25% at $21.31
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $8.10 (–12.34%), +0.12% at $8.11
- CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): closed at $39.10 (–2.57%)
- Circle Internet Group (CRCL): closed at $132.84 (+0.40%), -1.12% at $131.35
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $38.28 (–4.16%), -0.47% at $38.10
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $140.56 (–6.47%), -0.89% at $139.31
- Strive Asset Management (ASST): closed at $10.03 (–9.59%), -1.54% at $9.88
- Sharplink (SBET): closed at $7.87 (–5.29%), -0.25% at $7.85
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.07 (–6.96%), -2.80% at $1.04
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.18 (–2.48%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$129.6 million
- Cumulative net flows: $56.38 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.3m
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$55.5 million
- Cumulative net flows: $11.94 billion
- Total ETH holding ~5.79 million
Source: Farside Investors
