El Salvador Moves 5,689 BTC Into Cold Storage, Avalanche Foundation Discloses Community Coin Investments
Market Update
- The crypto market suffered from a sharp decline early this morning, which saw BTC (-4.48%) fall over 8% to the mid $65,000s before paring losses to $68k.ETH (-5.07%) and altcoins saw similar price action, fueling over $727 million in liquidations over the last 24 hours. Funding rates have been getting frothy, and the drop helped to bring rates to more neutral levels across the board (see below). SOL (+3.18%) has still managed to make a new all-time high in market capitalization, exceeding the November 2021 mark of $80.97 billion. Equity indices are falling today, with the SPY and QQQ decreasing 0.60% and 1.10%, respectively, as investors are likely derisking ahead of next week’s FOMC meeting, given this week’s economic data signaling some stalling in disinflation. Interestingly, despite drops in Bitcoin and equity indices, COIN (+2.11%) and WGMI (3.85%) are showing relative strength. Bitcoin miners have struggled as of late, but it will be interesting to monitor if this marks a local bottom.
Source: CoinGlass
- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced via Twitter the movement of a large chunk of El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings into cold storage. He attached an image of a wallet address showing 5,689 Bitcoin, equivalent to about $390 million at current prices. The country’s holdings were previously estimated at closer to 3,000 Bitcoin, and Bukele referenced that the movement was only part of the country's total holdings. Bukele mentioned earlier in the week that besides its purchases, the country is receiving Bitcoin through its passport program, mining operations, and revenue from government services. It is estimated that El Salvador has profited over $73m from its Bitcoin purchases thus far. El Salvador is the first nation-state to publicly disclose Bitcoin holdings as part of its reserves, and the country’s success could lead to more countries following in their footsteps.
- The Avalanche Foundation has announced its investment into five “community coins,” also known as meme coins. The holdings include Gecko, Coq Inu, Kimbo, NoChill, and Tech as part of its Culture Catalyst program. The Culture Catalyst program aims to foster growth from Web3 creators, recognizing the importance of native communities on the Avalanche network. The selection criteria included launch fairness, security measures, number of holders, ownership concentration, liquidity, market capitalization, and trading volume. The Avalanche Foundation also mentioned they are evaluating new ERC404 tokens to potentially add to its portfolio and noted that holdings will be subject to further additions or adjustments as the community evolves.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Many are wondering if the Miners ETF will start to show the kind of acceleration that Bitcoin has managed to turn out in recent weeks. After all, many of the Miners initially showed far better performance off the lows throughout February before settling in recent weeks. Despite some of the rapid ascent in stocks like MSTR and COIN, other stocks like HUT and/or MARA have not fared nearly as well. The Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF shows an initial resistance level at $18 to the minor downtrend of the past few weeks. Until/unless 18 is exceeded, it’s wise to let this consolidation play out and not attempt to buy dips. However, the act of reclaiming $18 would make WGMI much more attractive technically as this would represent a minor breakout which would allow for a push back to new all-time highs. Furthermore, given the shape of the pattern from December 2023 into peaks from Late February 2024, any challenge of all-time highs would represent a bullish base that could allow for meaningful upside acceleration. Thus, at present, it’s wise to simply keep a close eye on $18 for WGMI. Any move above this level should lead to $22 and above that likely leads to the high $20’s.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of March 15, 2024 12:14 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $1.33T | $67,842 | ↓ -3.72% | ↑ 61% | |
 ETH | $442B | $3,677 | ↓ -4.30% | ↑ 62% | ↑ 0.95% |
 SOL | $81B | $182 | ↑ 7.81% | ↑ 79% | ↑ 18% |
 ADA | $26B | $0.7185 | ↓ -4.24% | ↑ 21% | ↓ -39% |
 DOGE | $23B | $0.1607 | ↓ -6.81% | ↑ 80% | ↑ 20% |
 DOT | $13B | $10.31 | ↓ -7.98% | ↑ 27% | ↓ -34% |
 LINK | $11B | $19.26 | ↓ -6.42% | ↑ 29% | ↓ -32% |
 MATIC | $11B | $1.12 | ↓ -6.48% | ↑ 16% | ↓ -44% |
 NEAR | $7.7B | $7.28 | ↓ -7.57% | ↑ 102% | ↑ 42% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↑ 1.04% | $64.31 | ↑ 5.24% | ↑ 75% | ↑ 14% |
| BITW | ↓ -40% | $37.40 | ↑ 1.38% | ↑ 52% | ↓ -8.35% |
| ETHE | ↓ -20% | $34.16 | ↓ -0.96% | ↑ 76% | ↑ 15% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.30% | $13.12 | ↑ 4.13% | ↑ 60% | ↓ -0.24% |
News
QUICK BITS
CoinDesk El Salvador Has Thousands More Bitcoins Than Previously Known The Central American nation moved $400 million in BTC into a cold storage wallet this week. |
The Block Avalanche Foundation reveals five ‘community coins’ it holds Avalanche Foundation holds meme coins such as Coq Inu, Gecko, Kimbo, NoChill, and Tech, as part of its Culture Catalyst program. |
MARKET DATA
The Block Spot ETF net inflows slow as bitcoin retreats from latest all-time high The spot bitcoin ETFs also witnessed their third-largest day by trading volume as cumulative volume since launch reached $136 billion. |
The Block Solana market cap hits all-time high, price surges 10% amid memecoin fever Solana’s market capitalization reached an all-time high of $81.1 billion on Friday morning in Asia, The Block's data showed. |
CRYPTO INFRASTRUCTURE
TheMerkle Decrease In Layer 2 Transaction Fees After Dencun Upgrade and EIP-4844 In the aftermath of the recent Dencun upgrade and the deployment of EIP-4844, there has been a noticeable decline in transaction fees across various Layer 2 (L2... |
REGULATION
CoinDesk Hong Kong Regulator Says Crypto Exchange MEXC Has Been Operating Without a License Last year, regulators in Japan and Germany also alerted consumers the exchange was unlicensed. |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
The Block Berachain reportedly raises $69 million in latest funding round: Bloomberg Berachain has reached unicorn status, raising over $69 million in a round led by Brevan Howard Digital and Framework Ventures. |
INVESTMENT PRODUCTS
Bitcoinist Swiss Firm Launches Fully Backed Cardano Staking ETP On Thursday, March 14, Liqwid Finance, a Switzerland-based protocol, in collaboration with Issuance.Swiss AG, has officially launched a financial product named ... |
The Block Arbitrum eyes $400 million crypto gaming fund with proposal to DAO The foundation behind the Arbitrum blockchain wants to create a robust ecosystem full of new video games. |
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