BTC Price Slumps As Investors Flock To Original 'Doomsday Asset,' Gold

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market continues to lose ground, driven by disappointment over the absence of a plan for the U.S. government to buy bitcoin under the newly announced strategic reserve plan and amid persistent macroeconomic concerns.

BTC fell to $80,000 late Sunday, trading below the 200-day simple moving average, and ether took out a macro bullish trendline with a dip below the long-held support of $2,100. Other coins followed the two majors, posting bigger losses.

“Many investors are pulling out of bitcoin, viewing it as a risky asset class for the first time since Trump took the White House,” said Zach Burks, CEO and founder of NFT-service provider Mintology. “It’s no longer playing its role as a store of value. Gold prices have spiked as many go back to the original ‘doomsday asset,’ which is no surprise as tariffs and grenades continues to get thrown across the free world.”

The tariffs are making it harder for the Fed to move forward with rate cuts despite the continued decline trend in real-time inflation indicators. On Friday, Fed chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is waiting for greater clarity on Trump’s policies before making the next move.

Meanwhile, Japan’s fastest base pay rise in 32 years strengthened the case for a BOJ rate hike, pushing the nation’s bond yields and the yen higher. Bouts of strength in the haven currency typically breed downside volatility in risk assets.

Still, some observers are unsure if the market weakness, particularly seen over the weekend, could be long-lasting. “Trading volumes over the weekend were extremely low, reducing the value of the bearish signal,” Alex Kuptsikevich, the FxPro chief market analyst, told CoinDesk.

“We note that sellers push the price down in periods of low liquidity, but the price bounces back with the arrival of institutional buyers. It looks like the big buyers have enough liquidity left to buy out the drawdown,” Kuptsikevich said. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:
Macro
- March 10, 7:50 p.m.: Japan’s Cabinet Office releases (final) Q4 GDP data.
  - GDP Growth Annualized Prev. 1.2%
  - GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 0.7% vs. Prev. 0.3%
- March 11, 8:00 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases January industrial production data.
  - Industrial Production MoM Prev. -0.3%
  - Industrial Production YoY Prev. 1.6%
- March 11, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases January’s JOLTs report (job openings, hires, and separations).
  - Job Openings Est. 7.71M vs. Prev. 7.6M
  - Job Quits Prev. 3.197M
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- March 17 (TBC): Bit Digital (BTBT), $-0.05
- March 18 (TBC): TeraWulf (WULF), $-0.04
- March 24 (TBC): Galaxy Digital Holdings (TSE: GLXY), C$0.39

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
Unlocks
- March 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.93% of circulating supply worth $62.09 million.
- March 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 2.33% of its circulating supply worth $10.25 million.
- March 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.19% of its circulating supply worth $10.99 million.
- March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.1% of its circulating supply worth $33.46 million.
- March 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of its circulating supply worth $80 million.
- March 21: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.39% of circulating supply worth $13.13 million.
Token Listings
- March 11: Bybit to delist Bancor (BNT), Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Threshold.
- March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC and PAXG.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Zerebro (ZEREBRO), once a celebrated AI agent token, has crashed 96% from its January peak market cap of above $800 million to just $33.5 million.
AI agent tokens were among the hottest sectors in October and November, seeing rapid listings by exchanges and promotion by influencers on the narrative of a confluence between crypto and artificial intelligence.
Zerebro created its own music album and offered NFTs to fans, with plans of introducing a platform that allows token holders to launch their own AI agents. It reached over 120,000 followers on X in a short period.
Fundamentals remain strong, however, offering hope for those looking to invest in AI agent tokens. The project was selected as one of the validators for IP-focused blockchain Story last week, playing a role in a future economy that is wholly run by AI agents and machines.
A validator is a critical participant in a blockchain network, responsible for verifying and validating transactions and blocks to ensure the security and consensus of any network.
Story Protocol validators have specific responsibilities tailored to the protocol’s mission of managing and monetizing intellectual property on a blockchain, and the validators are paid in return for ensuring the network keeps functioning.

Derivatives Positioning

Perpetual funding rates in BTC, SOL, ADA, XRP and TRX have flipped negative, pointing to a bias for shorts as the market wilts.
Open interest in futures tied to BNB, HYPE, OM and DOT has increased in the past 24 hours, a sign of traders shorting in a falling market.
On Deribit, traders have snapped puts at $85K and $80K strikes while long positions in the $75K put rolled out or moved to June expiry.
ETH puts have been in demand as well, trading at a premium to calls out to June expiry.

Market Movements:

BTC is down 4.61% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $82,373.88 (24hrs: -3.21%)
ETH is down 1.6% at $2,101.66 (24hrs: -2.04%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 6.4% at 2,632.12 (24hrs: -3.26%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 8 bps at 3%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0015% (1.67% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 0.14% at 103.76
Gold is up 0.15% at $2,909.10/oz
Silver is up 1.14% at $32.92/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +0.38% at 37,028.27
Hang Seng closed -1.85% at 23,783.49
FTSE is down 0.59% at 8,629.02
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.96% at 5,415.85
DJIA closed on Friday +0.52% at 42,801.72
S&P 500 closed +0.55% at 5,770.20
Nasdaq closed +0.7% at 18,196.22
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.71% at 24,758.80
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.73% at 2,361.82
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 5 bps at 4.25%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.16% at 5,709.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.34% at 19,958.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.96% at 42,428.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.19 (-0.14%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02562 (2.40%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 813 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $48.2
Total Fees: 4.4 BTC / $371,994
CME Futures Open Interest: 142,260 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 28.2 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 8.01%

Technical Analysis

BTC's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk) — BTC’s daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

BTC has dived below a pennant pattern, hinting at the continuation of the broader decline from December highs.
The breakdown has strengthened the case for a retest of the former resistance-turned-support at around $73,800, the March 2024 high.
A pennant is a continuation pattern, representing a mid-trend triangular consolidation.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $287.18 (-5.57%), down 5.33% at $271.87 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $217.45 (+1.53%), down 5.36% at $205.79
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$18.84 (+0.11%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.02 (+6.16%), down 4.24% at $15.34
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.37 (+3.21%), down 4.42% at $8
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.78 (-0.89%), down 2.7% at $7.57
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.83 (+8.34%), down 3.85% at $8.49
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $16.32 (+3.29%), down 6.25% at $15.30
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $37.19 (+3.02%), down 3.47% at $35.90
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $29.40 (+0.34%), up 6.22% in pre-market

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$409.3 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.21 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1,137 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$23.1 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.72 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.635 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Top 20 digital assets’ prices and volumes

Chart of the Day

Raydium daily DEX volumes. (Artemis) — Raydium Daily DEX volumes. (Artemis)

The chart shows the daily volume on Solana’s decentralized exchange Raydium has dropped to $1 billon, the lowest since Nov. 29 and significantly below the Jan. 19 peak of $16.4 billion.
The sharp decline in activity helps explain the price swoon in Solana’s SOL token.