Week-over-week performance:
- BTCUSD: 95,553 / -2.76%
- ETHUSD: 2,672 / -1.29%
- US10Y: 4.51% / +1 bp
- DXY: 106.89 / -1.39%
- GOLD (USD/OZ): 2,914 / -0.27%
- SPX: 6,114 / +0.79%
- NDX: 22,114 / +1.65%
- DVOL: 51.34 / -3.73%
- VIX: 15.38 / -2.66%
Looking ahead – Economic calendar:
- Tuesday, 18 February 2025: 1st Tranche of FTX repayments
- Wednesday, 19 February 2025: UK CPI, FOMC minutes
- Thursday, 20 February 2025: US jobless claims
- Friday, 21 February 2025: $IMX Unlock (1.41% MC)
- Sunday, 23 February 2025: ETH Denver.
On the macro side:
Macro has remained subdued following the hotter-than-expected US CPI print, with markets relatively quiet due to yesterday’s US holiday. This week, attention turns to the FOMC minutes and potential updates on tariff policy.
Despite the stronger-than-expected January CPI, markets appear to be pricing in a seasonal effect, with Treasury yields broadly flat week-over-week.
Equities continue to show strength, with the VIX declining even as the SPX remains at all-time highs.
On the FX side:
USD retraced and found support at 106.5 as EURUSD failed to break above 1.052 and USDCHF found support again at 0.897.
As the week is light, I expect a tight range.
On the crypto side:
The market continues to trade sideways, with BTC dominating at 61.2%, marking nearly a four-year high.
The $LIBRA scandal involving Argentinian President Javier Milei is weighing on the DeFi sector, with SOL among the worst performers. Additionally, Meteora co-founder Ben Chow has resigned amid the controversy.
Regarding SOL’s underperformance: On 1 March, 1.2 million SOL will be released from the FTX bankruptcy auction, valued at USD 2.06 billion. FTX has already sold 41 million SOL across three auctions, with the top buyers purchasing at USD 64, USD 95, and USD 102, including OTC traders such as Galaxy, Pantera, and Figure. There is considerable speculation around this—while Pantera is likely to be long-only, Galaxy and other participants have probably hedged their positions.
SOLBTC recently broke below its 2024 year-long range and is now trading at 0.001742. While a move towards 0.0015 is possible, a mean reversion to 0.0023 also looks attractive.
Chart 1: SOLBTC 1D
With BTCUSD holding strong, I expect solid bids to emerge in the USD 92,000–USD 95,000 range.
Chart 2: BTCUSD 1D
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