Bitcoin fell 2.4% in the past 24 hours to around $66,900, while ether lost 2.7% to trade back below $2,000. The broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index fell 3.7%.
The declines weighed on crypto-related stocks. Coinbase (COIN) fell about 4% in premarket trading, while rival exchange Bullish (BLSH), which owns CoinDesk, fell 2.3%. Bitcoin treasury companies Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) also lost about 2.3%. Trading platform Robinhood ( HOOD ) fell 4.7% after saying fourth-quarter crypto earnings fell 38%.
Gold prices, on the other hand, rose about 0.9% to $5,070 per ounce, while silver rose over 5% after weaker-than-expected US retail sales data pointed to slowing consumer demand.
The dollar weakened and government yields fell as investors adjusted their expectations of rate cuts. At Polymarket, the odds of a Federal Reserve rate cut in March have risen from 7% to around 19% since the beginning of the month. At Kalshi they have reached 21%.
Derivative positioning
- Bearish momentum in BTC futures intensifies, with open interest falling further to $15.6 billion.
- The decline signals an extended deleveraging phase, underscored by funding rates falling deeper into negative territory on Binance (-6%) and Bybit (-0.50%), while a declining three-month basis (now at 1.6%) suggests institutional appetite is cooling rapidly.
- The bitcoin options market continues to signal high defensive caution as the one-week 25-delta bias has risen to 23%, although call dominance remains steady at 55%, suggesting some bottom fishing is underway.
- Despite this localized tension, the implied volatility structure remains unchanged, maintaining its hybrid state between backwardation and contango as the market balances expensive short-term protection with stabilized long-term volatility expectations.
- Coinglass data shows $297 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 77-23 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($121 million), ETH ($89 million) and others ($16 million) led the way in fictitious liquidations.
- The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $66,100 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price drop.
Token Talk
- Spark, the onchain capital allocator incubated by Sky, introduced two new lending products aimed at institutional borrowers, a move aimed at bridging the $33 billion offchain crypto lending market with decentralized finance.
- The products, Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending, extend the platform’s reach beyond decentralized finance-based users.
- Spark Prime allows institutional clients to trade on margin and settle over-the-counter while using security across both centralized and decentralized platforms.
- Spark Institutional Lending is built for businesses that require regulated custody. Through integrations with custodians such as Anchorage Digital, institutions can borrow against assets held offchain and leverage Spark’s onchain markets without moving capital onchain themselves.
- Spark currently manages over $9 billion in stablecoin liquidity across DeFi and has $5.2 billion in total value locked, as of data from DefiLlama.
- Spark native token SPK, whose holders through the DAO control the allocation and risk limits of these products, is up more than 2% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market.
