First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Regains $40K

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The crypto market ticked tentatively upward this morning with bitcoin moving back above $40,000. Bitcoin settled back above the $40,000 mark having climbed as high as $40,370 during the European morning, having sunk below the $39,000 mark on Tuesday, down almost 20% on its peak following the listing of the first spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. two weeks ago. Solana's SOL and Avalanche's AVAX led the broader market higher, gaining around 8.5% and 11.5% respectively. The CoinDesk 20 Index, a liquid index that tracks the highest tokens by capitalization, is up around 3% in the last 24 hours.

Cryptocurrency lender Nexo has filed an arbitration claim against the Republic of Bulgaria, seeking $3 billion in damages, accusing the country of “wrongful and politically motivated actions...involving unjustified and oppressive criminal investigations." Nexo claims that the investigations damaged its brand and reputation and led it to lose certain business opportunities, such as a potential initial IPO in the U.S. The Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office closed its investigation into Nexo for alleged money laundering offenses in December because there was no evidence of criminal activity.

A Donald Trump-labeled crypto wallet holds over $1 million of a TRUMP meme coin, having been worth only $7,100 on receipt. Issuance of the token has nothing to do with Trump directly, but some are using the tokens as a speculative bet on his ongoing presidential campaign. The tokens have a market capitalization of over $85 million on Wednesday, data shows. Sending tokens to a popular entity’s wallet is sometimes used as a strategy for attracting eyeballs by meme coin makers. The value of Trump’s wallet has shot up to $2.5 million, holding over $750,000 each in ether and wrapped ether and tiny amounts of several other tokens, most of which were likely sent to the wallet unsolicited.

Chart of The Day

• The notional open interest, or the dollar value locked in the number of active bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, has dropped by nearly $1.5 billion since the launch of spot ETFs in the U.S.
• According to Reflexivity Research, the decline represents the unwinding of longs betting on ETF approvals and entities using BITO/CME futures as a liquidity bridging vehicle leading into the ETF launches.
• Authorized participants likely bought bitcoin before the launch while simultaneously selling CME futures or BITO to hedge their risks.
• Source: Velo Data

- Omkar Godbole

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