IBIT Fastest ETF to $10 Billion, Blast Finally Launches
Market Update
- Bitcoin experienced an uptick in premarket trading, approaching $63k, and is now stabilizing just above $61k. As we will expand on below, yesterday's price action was special in light of the GBTC outflows that were experienced. The $BTC premium on Coinbase has decreased since the market opened, suggesting possible additional redemptions in GBTC today. However, the decrease isn't as pronounced as yesterday. $ETH is currently hovering just below $3400, generally mirroring Bitcoin's price movements. $SOL has finally broken out, surging last night to nearly $138 and is now consolidating around $130. Notable outperformers today include $INJ, AI-related assets $RNDR and $TAO, along with the dog coins, with $DOGE and $BONK attracting capital from a mini-rotation out of the majors. In traditional markets, morning price movements were influenced by an ISM Manufacturing PMI figure that fell short of expectations at 47.8, which drove down rates and the DXY, and pushed gold higher due to heightened recession concerns. Meanwhile, the QQQ is up nearly 1.0%, and the SPX has gained 0.50% for the day.
- As discussed in our crypto commentary video last night, yesterday's price action was remarkably bullish, especially considering the $600 million outflow from GBTC. According to the total fund flows data available this morning, inflows into other spot products not only compensated for this selling pressure but significantly exceeded it. IBIT attracted an additional $600 million, bringing its three-day total to over $1.7 billion in USD inflows. Combined with the rest of the funds, the total net inflows yesterday amounted to $92 million, pushing the aggregate USD inflows into spot ETF products to $7.4 billion. From an AUM perspective—looking beyond just flows—BlackRock's IBIT has become the fastest ETF to reach $10 billion in AUM.
Source: Farside Investors, Fundstrat
- The Ethereum Layer 2 network, Blast, officially launched its mainnet, enabling over 180,000 early access users to withdraw their funds from a varied asset pool, including ETH, USDC, USDT, stETH, and DAI, totaling over $2.3 billion in TVL. Founded by Tieshun Roquerre of the NFT marketplace Blur, Blast set out transform yield generation for Ethereum and stablecoins by offering native L2 yields of 4% and 5%, respectively. Despite some skepticism from other market participants, Blast has robustly defended its yield model as sustainable, underpinned by protocols like Lido and MakerDAO. The platform's launch has been highly anticipated, as it looks to establish itself as a strong contender in the Layer 2 space and become a potential game-changer as it pertains to yield strategies.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Note: This is a Resend from Yesterday
Wednesday's consolidation breakout in Solana paved the way for upward acceleration today, and this should be viewed as a successful technical development in resolving the neutral period of range-bound consolidation that's lasted since late December, over two months ago. Upside technical targets lie initially at $145, but it's expected this proves minor in scope before a larger rally to $186 and intermediate-term targets near former all-time 2021 highs at $260. $186 resistance coincides with a 100% alternate extension of last Fall's rally when measured from late January lows. Overall, the daily chart shows a pattern that's proven to be fairly reliable over time as a Cup and Handle pattern that has just resolved itself by a breakout above the neckline ~119. This is bullish, and higher prices look likely into mid-March and for a bullish uptrend to accelerate higher back to new all-time highs sometime in 2024.
Daily Important Metrics
|
All metrics as of March 1, 2024 12:15 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $1.21T | $61,803 | ↓ -0.05% | ↑ 46% | |
 ETH | $410B | $3,413 | ↓ -0.34% | ↑ 50% | ↑ 3.67% |
 SOL | $58B | $131 | ↑ 1.31% | ↑ 29% | ↓ -17% |
 ADA | $24B | $0.6899 | ↑ 1.40% | ↑ 16% | ↓ -30% |
 DOGE | $19B | $0.1315 | ↑ 1.88% | ↑ 48% | ↑ 1.38% |
 LINK | $12B | $19.88 | ↓ -0.25% | ↑ 33% | ↓ -13% |
 DOT | $11B | $8.39 | ↓ -2.80% | ↑ 3.47% | ↓ -43% |
 MATIC | $10B | $1.02 | ↓ -0.84% | ↑ 6.09% | ↓ -40% |
 NEAR | $4.1B | $3.95 | ↑ 0.66% | ↑ 9.67% | ↓ -37% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↑ 1.37% | $37.25 | ↑ 4.78% | ↑ 1.09% | ↓ -45% |
| BITW | ↓ -42% | $24.10 | ↑ 3.88% | ↓ -1.87% | ↓ -48% |
| ETHE | ↓ -9.17% | $19.73 | ↑ 4.50% | ↑ 1.39% | ↓ -45% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.01% | $8.07 | ↑ 3.46% | ↓ -1.34% | ↓ -48% |
News
QUICK BITS
The Block Bitcoin’s next halving event may now be just 50 days away Estimates would see Bitcoin’s fourth halving arrive on April 21, with the block reward dropping from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. |
CoinDesk Worldcoin’s WLD Drops as Elon Musk Sues OpenAI WLD is considered a proxy bet on OpenAI, the Sam Altman-owned artificial intelligence company. |
MARKET DATA
The Block BlackRock’s IBIT spot bitcoin ETF crosses $10 billion in AUM BlackRock's IBIT saw its second-largest daily inflows of $603.9 million — canceled out by $598.9 million in outflows from Grayscale’s GBTC. |
The Block Decentralized lending TVL surges to over $30 billion for the first since mid-2022 Decentralized lending protocols’ total value locked has exceeded $30 billion for the first time since mid-2022. |
REGULATION
CoinDesk SEC in ‘Enforcement-Only Mode’ for Crypto, Commissioner Peirce Says at ETHDenver “What I reflect is the fact that you all are spending part of your brainpower” wondering how to avoid getting sued, she said during a panel at EthDenver. |
CoinDesk |
The Block Hong Kong draws 22 firms seeking crypto exchange licenses including OKX, Bybit and HTX Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission received license applications from 22 firms to operate as crypto exchanges. |
WEB 3.0
The Block Delta upgrade results in fee reduction on Optimism ecosystem chains The Delta hardfork was deployed on various Optimism-based chains, including OP Mainnet, Base and Zora, targeting reduced Layer 1 fees. |
Decrypt.co Blast Unlocks $2.3 Billion in Crypto as Ethereum Scaler Launches Ethereum layer-2 network Blast is live as first apps go online—and billions in crypto funds locked up by users can now be withdrawn. |
Reports you may have missed
MARKET COMMENTARYA PRETTY SIZEABLE MISS IN TODAY'S CONSUMER SENTIMENT SURVEY REVERSED MOST OF THE GAINS EXPERIENCED IN THE CRYPTO MARKET OVER THE PAST 24 HOURS. Consumer sentiment came in at 67.4, well below market expectations of 77.2. 1Y inflation expectations came in at 3.5%, well above the market forecast of 3.2%. We saw the DXY 0.00% turn sharply higher on the move, and most risk assets sold off. BTC 0.28% fell from...
U.S. equity indices are showing modest gains today following weekly jobless claims coming in higher than expected, showing 231k versus 212k estimated, putting downward pressure on the DXY 0.00% (-0.21%) and rates. The $SPY has gained 0.36%, approaching the $520 mark, while the $QQQ has risen 0.14% to the $440. Crypto assets are showing larger gains, with BTC 0.28% (+1.57%) rising above $62k and ETH 0.01% (+1.05%) surpassing $3,000. The Render Networkâs mobile app, OctaneX, was featured in Appleâs keynote presentation earlier...
The crypto market declined overnight, with BTC 0.28% dropping from $63k to $61k, SOL 0.29% from $150 to $145, and ETH 0.01% dipping below the $3k mark once again. The likely cause of the drawdown was upward pressure on the DXY 0.00% and a lack of follow-through in flows. Among the few outperformers of the day were RUNE 1.85% , the native token of the cross-chain swapping protocol Thorchain, and Ethereum Classic (ETC 0.19% ), possibly driven by...
Rates are broadly lower again on Tuesday, with the US 10Y nearing 4.4%, down from 4.7% just under a week ago. Risk assets are on the rise, with both the $SPX and $QQQ showing gains today. Crypto performance is mixed so far, with BTC 0.28% retesting the $63k level after US market open, following a rally to just over $64k in the early morning hours. Meanwhile, ETH 0.01% is still hovering just...
