By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The flip-flopping nature of the crypto market is on full display as the sentiment on social media has changed from “it’s so over” to “we are so back” in just 24 hours, thanks to President Donald Trump naming BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA as candidates for the long-promised strategic crypto reserve.
The announcement has lifted valuations across the board, with market leader bitcoin reinstating $89,000 and $91,000 as key support levels, and the options market shows renewed interest in the $100K bets.
Still, some analysts are calling for caution. “Crypto is back on track with a positive momentum and enthusiasm from investors. However, it’s important to note that no concrete actions have been taken yet, and a continued lack of immediate catalysts could lead to another slowly correcting market,” Valentin Fournier, analyst at BRN, said in an email.
That’s sensible because tough questions may be asked once the initial excitement about the announcement subsides. For instance, Trump still needs congressional approval for this basket of reserves. While BTC makes sense as a reserve asset, having reportedly found a place in investor portfolios as digital gold, including XRP, ETH, SOL, and ADA raises concerns, as some of these tokens barely have links to economic activity.
It begs the question: Why would a government facing debt issues invest in assets with minimal ties to the economy and are unlikely to generate a significant multiplier effect and help improve debt-to-GDP ratios?
Plus, allegations of insider trading related to Trump’s Sunday announcement might dent sentiment. On Sunday, an unidentified trader deployed roughly $6 million in a 50x leveraged long bet on BTC and ETH and booked out with a profit of $6.8 million. “A U.S. crypto reserve could be a great boon to the asset class, but investors may feel more confident if significant measures are taken to resolve the fear of insider meddling,” Mena Theodorou, co-founder at crypto exchange Coinstash, said, referring to the alleged insider trading.
For now, it’s risk-on, and a similar positive action on Wall Street could see solid gains in XRP/BTC, SOL/BTC and ADA/BTC crosses. Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, also known as Toly, has reportedly expressed support for the SIMD-0228 proposal, which seeks to reform Solana’s staking mechanism to reduce inflation.
We can expect more details about the proposed reserve at Friday’s crypto summit at the White House. In the meantime, two other key events to watch are Wednesday’s U.S. ISM non-manufacturing (services) PMI and Friday’s payrolls report.
Note that the U.S. 10-year yield has declined for seven straight weeks, largely pricing a slowdown in the economy. The focus might shift back to that if the two impending data sets print below estimates, potentially weighing over risk assets.
What to Watch
Crypto:
March 5, 2:29 a.m.: Ethereum testnet Sepolia receives the Pectra hard fork network upgrade at epoch 222464.
March 5, 11:00 a.m.: Circle hosts a live webinar titled “State of the USDC Economy 2025” featuring Circle Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy Dante Disparte and three other executives from Bridge, Nubank and Cumberland.
March 7: President Trump will host the inaugural White House Crypto Summit, which will bring together top cryptocurrency founders, CEOs and investors.
March 11: The Bitcoin Policy Institute and U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis co-host the invitation-only one-day event “Bitcoin for America” in Washington.
Macro
March 3, 8:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases February Brazil manufacturing data.
Manufacturing PMI Prev. 50.7
March 3, 9:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases February Canada manufacturing data.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.9 vs. Prev. 51.6
March 3, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (final) February U.S. Manufacturing data.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.6 vs. Prev. 51.2
March 3, 10:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases February Mexico manufacturing data.
Manufacturing PMI Prev. 49.1
March 3, 10:00 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management releases February U.S. manufacturing data.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 50.8 vs. Prev. 50.9
March 3, 8:00 p.m.: Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Third Annual Session starts.
March 4, 12:01 a.m.: The U.S. imposes another 10% tariff on all goods from China and a 25% tariff on most goods from Canada and Mexico (10% tariff for Canadian energy).
March 4, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases January eurozone employment data.
Unemployment Rate Est. 6.3% vs. Prev. 6.3%
March 4, 8:00 p.m.: China’s 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) Third Annual Session starts.
March 4, 8:30 p.m.: Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda speech at the IMF event “Asia and the IMF: Resilience through Cooperation” in Tokyo.
March 4, 8:45 p.m.: Caixin Media releases February China economic activity data.
Services PMI Est. 50.8 vs. Prev. 51
Composite PMI Prev. 51.1
Earnings
March 6 (TBC): Bitfarms (BITF), $-0.04
March 17 (TBC): Bit Digital (BTBT), $-0.05
March 18 (TBC): TeraWulf (WULF), $-0.03
March 24 (TBC): Galaxy Digital Holdings (TSE: GLXY), C$0.38
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Paraswap DAO is discussing the return of 44.67 wrapped ether (wETH) to hacked cryptocurrency exchange Bybit that were collected by the DAO since the security breach.
Ampleforth DAO is discussing authorizing the Ampleforth Foundation to borrow 800,000 FORTH tokens from the treasury over 12 months to provide liquidity on major centralized exchanges.
March 3, 4 p.m.: Livepeer (LPT) to host a Treasury Talk session.
March 3, 12 p.m.: Solana Name Service (SNS) to host a Townhall Meeting.
Unlocks
March 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 1.3% of circulating supply worth $15.91 million.
March 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlocked 0.63% of circulating supply worth $12.35 million.
March 8: Berachain (BERA) to unlock 9.28% of circulating supply worth $73.80 million.
March 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.08% of its circulating supply worth $21.4 million.
March 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.93% of circulating supply worth $66.16 million.
Token Listings
March 6: Roam ($ROAM) to be listed on KuCoin and MEXC.
Conferences
CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.
Day 2 of 2: Crypto Expo Europe (Bucharest, Romania)
March 8: Bitcoin Alive (Sydney, Australia)
March 10-11: MoneyLIVE Summit (London)
March 13-14: Web3 Amsterdam ‘25 (Netherlands)
March 19-20: Next Block Expo (Warsaw, Poland)
March 26: DC Blockchain Summit 2025 (Washington)
March 28: Solana APEX (Cape Town, South Africa)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
Football icon Ronaldinho launched $STAR10, his latest BNB Chain memecoin earlier on Monday, hitting a $270 million market cap within hours.
Touted as his “official” token, it’s his fourth known crypto venture since 2018, following Ronaldinho Soccer Coin (RSC), $RON, and a Solana-based token—all of which soared briefly before crashing, earning him “rug pull” accusations.
RSC aimed for VR football projects but flopped; $RON and the Solana token faded amid hype and no delivery.
Critics on X slam $STAR10 as another cash grab, citing his pattern: leveraging 21 million X and 76 million Instagram followers for pumps, then abandoning projects. Past tokens lacked follow-through, with prices tanking after initial spikes—RSC hit near-zero, $RON stalled, and the Solana token raised manipulation flags.
Community sentiment is wary—some see a quick flip, others a repeat rug. Four tokens in seven years, all hyped and forgotten mere days after launch. Investors tread carefully.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC and ETH’s futures open interest remained flat Sunday as prices surged, a sign the rally was spot-driven.
OM, HYPE and BCH tokens still see negative funding rates, a sign of the dominance of leveraged short bets.
TRX, BTC, XMR, ADA and BCH are tokens with positive cumulative volume deltas, implying net buying in the perpetual futures markets.
On Deribit, short-term skews have bounced to zero from negative, indicating a decline in bias for protective puts.
Block flows featured demand for BTC $90K and $100K calls, calendar spreads at $85K strike puts. An entity sold the $92K strike put in April expiry while purchasing the $102 call in the same expiry, according to Amberdata. Ether flows featured short positions in puts to fund longs in calls.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 9.86% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $92,589.90 (24hrs: +7.61%)
ETH is up 6% at $2,359.35 (24hrs: +5.27%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 12.7% at 3,072.74 (24hrs: +10.14%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 18 bps at 3.14%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0068% (7.45% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.52% 107.06
Gold is up 0.44% at $2,871.94/oz
Silver is up 1.05% at $31.49/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +1.7% at 37,785.47
Hang Seng closed +0.28% at 23,006.27
FTSE is up 0.53% at 8,856.47
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.75% at 5,504.53
DJIA closed on Friday +1.39% at 43,840.91
S&P 500 closed +1.59% at 5,954.50
Nasdaq closed +1.63% at 18,847.28
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.06% at 25,393.45
S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.07% at 2,298.92
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 4 bps at 4.26%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.31% at 5,982.00
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.4% at 21,002.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.22% at 43,984.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 61.37 (1.58%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02548 (-4.64%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 792 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $49.9
Total Fees: 5.54 BTC / $490,522
CME Futures Open Interest: 430,806 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 32.4 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.20%
Technical Analysis
The cardano-bitcoin (ADA/BTC) ratio has formed a large inverse head-and-shoulders pattern.
A break above the trendline would confirm or trigger the pattern, signaling a bullish shift in sentiment.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $255.43 (+6.41%), up 12.85% at $288.24 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $215.62 (+3.48%), up 10.06% at $237.31
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$21.53 (+6.16%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.92 (+6.02%), up 9.63% at $15.26
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $9.28 (+7.16%), up 10.56% at $10.26
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $11.16 (+4.2%), up 5.11% at $11.73
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.99 (+6.39%), up 10.76% at $8.85
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $17.82 (+5.51%), up 10.04% at $19.61
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $42.92 (+5.64%), up 7.69% at $42.92
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed unchanged at $42.20
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $94.3 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.95 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1,133 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: -$41.9 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.82 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.652 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
SOL’s short-term skews remain negative, showing a bias for protective puts, reflecting persistent fears of downside risks.
While You Were Sleeping
CME Bitcoin March Futures Gap Jumps By Over $9K (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s spot price surge past $94,000 on Sunday created a $9,280 gap in March CME futures, which opened at $95,000 on Monday, up from Friday’s $85,720 high.
Bitcoin Rally to $93K Sees Bears Lose $550M in Big Sunday Liquidations (CoinDesk): Nearly $600M in bearish crypto bets were liquidated Sunday as Trump’s crypto reserve announcement fueled volatility, with open interest in XRP, ADA, and SOL futures jumping 40%.
Bitcoin $100K Plays Back in Vogue After 10% BTC Price Surge from ‘Trump Put’ (CoinDesk): President Trump’s call for a strategic crypto reserve has renewed interest in $100K BTC calls on Deribit, though some warn the plan could face significant hurdles.
ECB Rate Cuts Enter Final Stretch With Divisions Widening (Bloomberg): The ECB nears the end of its rate-cutting cycle, but policymakers are split between caution over inflation and calls for faster cuts amid trade uncertainty.
Starmer Announces ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to Guarantee Ukraine Peace (BBC News): U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlined a four-point plan for Ukraine: military aid, economic pressure on Russia, Ukraine’s role in peace talks, and a European-led effort to guarantee long-term security.
US Hints That Tariffs on Mexico and Canada Could Be Lower Than 25% (Financial Times): Trump’s Tuesday tariffs on Mexico and Canada remain in flux, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that ongoing negotiations and fentanyl concerns could influence the final rates.
Chinese Buyers Are Ordering Nvidia’s Newest AI Chips, Defying U.S. Curbs (The Wall Street Journal): Chinese resellers are bypassing U.S. export curbs on Nvidia chips by using foreign-registered companies to buy servers from authorized Nvidia customers in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
In the Ether
