Daily Market Update: Feb 16, 2023

February 16, 2023

BTC is currently trading around $24,400 and ETH around $1,700. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are ACS, FLOKI, and OP. The global crypto market cap is ~$1.15T, up ~5.1% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$51b and BTC dominance is around 45%.

Crypto markets continue to extend their upward trend, while equities are moving lower following another worse-than-expected read-through for inflation with this morning’s PPI release. Reports of more friendly crypto regulation in Hong Kong were likely the most significant catalyst spurring crypto’s recent divergence from other risk assets. While the crypto rally has been broad-based, it has been uncharacteristically led by the majors like BTC & ETH. One potential theory may be a flight to the highest quality decentralized assets amidst the perceived threat of a heightened crackdown on centralized stablecoins.

Notable news includes: Hong Kong will reportedly legalize crypto trading for its citizens beginning on June 1st; the SEC proposed expanding federal custody rules by requiring custodial crypto assets to be held by a ‘qualified custodian’; Abu Dhabi increased its commitment to crypto by vowing to invest $2b in crypto startups; Binance revealed its expecting to settle monetary fines with U.S regulators for past misconduct; Flashbots unveiled its latest MEV solution that would connect ordinary users to MEV harvesters known as searchers, allowing users to earn MEV by auctioning their transactions to searchers; the Blur CEO petitioned creators to ‘block OpenSea’ in a new blog post over royalty fees; a professional Fortnite player claimed the high prize in Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash, listing the one-of-one golden key prize for 2,222 ETH; OpenSea took down Rihanna’s music NFTs for violating its ToS by offering claims on future profit; CleanSpark sold a tokenized ‘clean’ Bitcoin mining credit issued by the Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol to the alternative asset management firm Melanion Capital; Celsius’s creditors sued former CEO Alex Mashinsky; and, the Mango Markets exploiter’s legal team objected to a law suit seeking the return of $47m to Mango Labs.

Authors:
Matt Kunke, Junior Strategist | TwitterTelegramLinkedIn
Brian Rudick, Senior Strategist | TwitterTelegramLinkedIn

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