Bitcoin’s market dynamics have shifted noticeably in early 2025, revealing significant trends in holder activity and price volatility. Analysts note that these changes may reflect broader market cycles, potentially guiding
Bitcoin's price has fallen sharply, hitting a four-month low. Interest in AI stocks has diverted attention from cryptocurrencies. Continue Reading: Bitcoin Plummets While AI Stocks Shine: What’s Going On? The post Bitcoin Plummets While AI Stocks Shine: What’s Going On? appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .
MyShell, a decentralized AI consumer layer designer that connects AI agents and associates, has recently launched its token, SHELL. Interestingly, it has received the Binance HODLer airdrop listing, pumping the MyShell token price by 45% moments after the announcement. As the token kicks off in the market with hype, investors are eyeing the $1 milestone. Let’s discuss the listing details and SHELL’s further price action. MyShell Token Price Hit ATH on Binance HODLer Airdrop Listing The Binance team announced the SHELL listing just a few hours ago, and moments after that, the MyShell token price began to pump. Within a few hours, the token surged from $0.47 to an ATH of $0.6816 after a 45% surge. Additionally, it reached a market capitalization of $184.2M and a trading volume of $100.9M at its peak. According to the Binance listing announcement , the SHELL token will be listed for trading on February 27, 2025, at 13:00 UTC. This marks MyShell token as the 10th program on the Binance HOLDler airdrop. The exchange has announced the listing with trading pairs like BTC, USDT, USDC, BNB, FDUSD, and TRY. More importantly, BNB holders who subscribed to the Simple Earn (Flexible and Locked) or On-Chain Yield products between February 14 and February 18, 2025, could access the HODLer SHELL airdrop. 25M SHELL tokens, or 2.5% of the total supply, are allocated to this most awaited crypto airdrop , and another 25M are scheduled for distribution after six months of listing. These events could have a significant impact on the SHELL price. Will MyShell Token Price Hit $1? The SHELL price has consolidated slightly from the prime and currently trades at $0.6126. Despite the drop, it is 30% up today and 46% over the week. Considering its performance and investor demand, some experts believe in its potential to attain $1. SHELL is trending due to its status as an AI token in the current market. Additionally, the ongoing exchange listings would boost investor confidence with increased visibility and credibility. Meanwhile, the hype is building, around 27% of the token’s supply (270 M) is in circulation. Experts believe that it will likely grow with developments in the AI and Web3 sectors. More importantly, investor sentiments would play the most significant role in the MyShell price rally to $1. The token might achieve this target if its bullish momentum continues and market trends favor its growth. However, as it is already experiencing consolidation and the Binance HODLer airdrop will release millions of tokens, it might experience increased volatility. More importantly, investors’ selling sentiments could crash the price. Investors must carefully analyze all the possibilities and trade accordingly. What’s In There For You? The Binance HODLer airdrop listing has positioned the MyShell token for investors’ attention, and its price surged 45% right after the announcement. With SHELL’s involvement in the AI and Web3 industries, its token price is anticipated to witness significant rallies. However, that entirely depends on crypto market trends, investors, sentiments, etc. At the same time, the token possesses high volatility due to its recent launch and airdrop distribution. Investors must not jump into trading under FOMO and must do further research before doing so. The post MyShell (SHELL) Token Price Pumps 45% After Binance HODLer Airdrop Listing: Is $1 Next? appeared first on CoinGape .
Solana price is down by 40% over the past month, with the crash causing panic selling that has pushed SOL to extremely oversold levels. Traders are selling Solana at the same pace they did during the FTX collapse in 2022, raising speculation over whether the altcoin faces further downside or a price recovery lies ahead. Let’s explore what this oversold situation means for SOL price. Solana price today trades at $141 with a marginal increase of 1%. SOL is experiencing volatile swings with the price fluctuating between $130 and $142 in 24 hours. Solana Price Hits Extreme Oversold Levels After Crashing 40% The intense selling pressure caused by bearish trends across the broader crypto market has pushed Solana into extremely oversold territory. According to analyst Gnarleyquinn, Solana’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) has dropped to levels usually seen during capitulation events. After the recent drop in Solana price, the RSI has tanked 40% to levels previously seen when the FTX exchange filed for bankruptcy. SOL also witnessed two other capitulation events in 2023 that forced the RSI to drop to these extreme levels. Solana RSI Usually, whenever the RSI drops to these record lows, it may precede a reversal to the upside. Analyst Raoul Pal outlined this potential rebound by pointing out that Solana price has breached the lower boundary of the logarithmic regression channel. This drop suggests the likelihood of a reversal. Looking at the past trends, whenever SOL reaches this level, it bounces back to the center of the midline, suggesting that a mean reversion is likely to happen. Solana Log Regression Channel If sellers are exhausted and buyers step in now to buy SOL at the current price, it may precede a bullish Solana price forecast . But how far can SOL rally? What’s Next For SOL – Recovery or Crash? Solana price has dropped to the lowest level since October 2024, as SOL bears take control . The price has also been consistently making lower lows, suggesting that the downward momentum is growing stronger. SOL has formed support at $134 and it is successfully defending this price level. If the downtrend continues and the extreme crowd bearishness pushes SOL below this support, a drop to $120 remains likely. Technical indicators also show that despite oversold conditions, SOL may be poised for another downtrend. The Average Directional Index is rising, suggesting the current downtrend is strong. The red Awesome Oscillator bars are also increasing in their length, indicating that the bearish momentum is accelerating. For the trend to reverse to the upside, SOL needs to flip resistance at $177, which will set the stage for a rally past $200. SOL/USDT: 1-day Chart Because of this bearish outlook, SOL price may not be poised for a recovery in the near term. A bullish reversal will only happen if greed replaces the current sentiment of fear in the market. The post Solana Price Hits Extreme Oversold Levels After 40% Crash, Will SOL Recover? appeared first on CoinGape .
The Ethereum market is facing increasing volatility, with predictions indicating a potential plunge below the $1,000 mark before any significant recovery. The current trading environment is turbulent, as ETH struggles
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is donating more than a million dollars to help Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev with his legal defense. The contribution follows the developer’s supervised release to prepare to appeal his money laundering conviction in the Netherlands. Ethereum Foundation Aids Alexey Pertsev’s Defense On Wednesday, the Ethereum Foundation announced its $1.25 million donation to Alexey Pertsev’s legal defense. In an X post, the Foundation shared their contribution to the Tornado Cash developer, affirming that “privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime.” In August 2022, The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Ethereum-based crypto mixer Tornado Cash for “failing to impose effective controls” that prevented malicious actors from laundering funds using the protocol. The US Treasury Department argued that the decentralized protocol was used to launder over $7 billion since 2019, including $455 million linked to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group. Following the sanctions, Pertsev was detained in the Netherlands and charged with money laundering for allegedly helping enable the laundering of $1.2 billion between the introduction of Tornado Cash in December 2019 and August 2022. In May 2024, the developer was found guilty of money laundering by the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. However, he recently received a supervised release to work on his upcoming appeal. As reported by Bitcoinist, Pertsev’s legal team submitted an appeal against the court’s ruling after his conviction, leading to his supervised release to prepare for the appeal out of prison. In an X post, the developer announced his February 7 release, explaining that the court suspended his pretrial detention under the condition of electronic monitoring. He added that his release was not “real freedom” but was “better than prison.” Fight For Privacy Tools Continues Pertsev thanked the Ethereum Foundation’s contribution to his defense, expressing gratitude and relief for the donation as he can “now completely focus on preparing my appeal.” Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, also responded to the EF’s post, sharing the same message as the Foundation. Buterin has advocated for privacy on different occasions, using protocols like Railgun and stating, “Privacy is normal, and writing code is not a crime.” Recently, he called for the release of Pertsev and Tornado Cash’s co-founder, Roman Storm, who was also detained in 2022 and awaits his April 14 trial. The Ethereum founder stated that “no man should be left behind” after US President Donald Trump granted the full pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. The Ethereum Foundation’s move follows Paradigm’s recent donation to Tornado Cash’s co-founder. The crypto firm contributed $1.25 million to Storm’s legal defense on January 28, arguing that “the prosecution’s case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties, which would have a chilling effect in crypto and beyond.” It’s worth noting that crypto privacy received a partial victory a month ago when the US District Court for the Western District of Texas reversed the OFAC sanctions against Tornado Cash following its November ruling. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that OFAC had “overstepped its congressionally defined authority” by sanctioning the crypto mixing protocol. The court concluded that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts can’t be classified as “property” under federal law, placing them outside the reach of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Bitcoin's market dynamics shifted in early 2025, with key indicators highlighting market cycle transitions and potential price bottoms.
Summary In October, we recommended a 'long Bitcoin, short MicroStrategy' trade due to MSTR's high NAV premium and reduced borrowing capacity. Since then, Bitcoin is up 21%, while MSTR is mostly flat, validating the trade idea. That said, MSTR's NAV premium has now shrunk significantly, and the company's recent convertible issuance shows an insatiable appetite for zero cost convertible bonds. Thus, it's time to close the trade and move on to greener pastures. In October of last year, we highlighted a trade idea that got a LOT of flak at the time - going long Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and short Strategy ( MSTR )(formerly MicroStrategy ), the leveraged bitcoin holding company. In an article titled " MicroStrategy Is Tapped Out, Short Shares And Buy Bitcoin Instead ", we discussed the idea and explained that MSTR's borrowing capacity was reaching an upper limit, which meant that investors shouldn't pay up for the stock. With a significant premium to NAV, we didn't see the value in acquiring shares simply for CEO Michael Saylor's active treasury management strategy. At the time, MSTR was on a blisteringly hot run, and so our idea was met with a considerable amount of skepticism here on Seeking Alpha. Despite that, if you fast forward to today, the performance of MSTR since our 'Strong Sell' rating is basically flat. In contrast, Bitcoin is up more than 21%, which has led to a nice gain on the spread in less than half a year: Seeking Alpha Now, 4-5 months on, the picture has changed considerably. MSTR has continued to issue debt and buy bitcoin, striking deals for convertibles paying 0% coupon rates, showing just how much investor demand there is for long term 'call options' on MSTR's stock. At the same time, MSTR's NAV premium has shrunk considerably, which has significantly reduced the attractiveness of trying to squeeze more gains out of the trade idea. Altogether, it seems as though the time has come to call it a day with a 21% total net gain, start to finish, in this position. Today , we'll examine MSTR's current financial position, explore the stock's balance sheet dynamics, and explain why we think now is the right time to exit the 'long Bitcoin, short MSTR' trade. Sound good? Let's dive in. MSTR's Financials As always, let's begin with a quick look into MSTR's financials. Before getting into the numbers, however, it's probably worth laying out MSTR's treasury management strategy for those who are new to the stock (if there are any of those left). Assume that you could go back to 2013, and that you had $100,000 in your bank account in that year. What would you do with it? If you were smart, you'd invest it into Bitcoin, which was trading around $100 bucks per coin. This gets you out of a 'losing' currency and into a 'winning' currency. Monetarily, a $100k purchase in 2013 gets you 1,000 Bitcoins. In today's day and age, that would be worth roughly $85 million. Inflation adjusted, that's still $63 million in 2013 dollars. Not bad. If you held the cash in your account and didn't touch it, then you'd be down more than 37% in terms of buying power for key U.S. goods and services, as measured by the CPI: TradingView The lesson here is simple - USDs tend to lose value over time, and with a fixed supply and increasing utility, Bitcoins - so far - have mostly gained value over time. But what if you wanted to make the most amount of money that you could? If you were placed back in 2013, then you'd actually borrow as much USD as you could get your hands on to buy Bitcoin. The borrowed funds would cost you less to pay back in the future, and those funds would also grow into a much larger balance over time. This is how to make the 'most' from this dynamic, and it's exactly what Saylor has done with MSTR's treasury. On the asset side, most of MSTR's assets are invested into Bitcoins, which totaled 499,096 at last count. In today's USD terms, these are worth roughly $48.7 billion. With a cost basis of ~$33 billion and an average price of $66k, the strategy has worked out well so far, netting gains for the company. But to maximize earnings, MSTR has also issued convertible debt to get 'short' exposure to USD while boosting Bitcoin holdings even further. In essence, this is why the stock is so volatile - the huge BTC position that's partially purchased with borrowed money, and the inherent 'short' position in USD via convertible bonds: Saylorcharts.com The whole balance sheet is basically one big leveraged bet on BTC-USD prices moving higher. Let's quickly map out the value exchanges here because they're not immediately obvious. First , let's look at the convertible bondholders. Institutional investors who buy convertible bonds essentially give cash to MSTR. From there, MSTR invests that cash into Bitcoin. Recently, MSTR issued $2 billion in bonds for this purpose. In this case, investors aren't getting interest payments, they're getting a payout diagram similar to OTM call options. This essentially equates to MSTR getting cash now, investing it, and then potentially needing to pay out shares or cash in the future: If Bitcoin has increased in price, shares are issued and everyone is happy (minus some dilution). If Bitcoin has remained mostly flat or gone up in price, but not up to the conversion price, then MSTR has basically gotten a free loan to hold Bitcoin exposure long, and USD exposure short, over that period of time. The spread here could be significant enough to realize profits to MSTR shareholders. Finally, if Bitcoin goes down in price, then MSTR needs to sell more Bitcoin than they bought to pay back the loan. Again, bondholders essentially get long-dated call options on Bitcoin, even though they're paying through the nose for it. For stockholders, you'll likely suffer some dilution. However, given the exposure to both sides of BTC-USD, you get exposure to MSTR's underlying balance sheet positioning. Over the long run, this has proven to be a winning strategy. The risk here materializes if Bitcoin goes down in price precipitously and stays there. In this event, then MSTR may need to sell more Bitcoin than they bought to pay back the loan, which would lead to falling Bitcoin holdings and realized losses. Taken together, essentially, Saylor is betting that Bitcoin won't go down and remain down for a period of ~5 years or more on a rolling basis, based on where he's issuing convertible debt. If that happens, then shareholders might be in trouble, if the company begins realizing losses to pay back the leverage. This seems unlikely given the relatively conservative leverage profile, but this is how the whole MSTR machine operates. MSTR's Valuation Now - this is all good to know, but how does it relate to getting out of the short MSTR, long Bitcoin trade? Here's why. In the past, there were basically two reasons we thought the trade looked enticing: Borrowing capacity is capped out The NAV premium was getting extended Now that both of these conditions have relaxed, it's worth explaining why a pair trade no longer makes as much sense. First, the debt. In our initial article, we mentioned that MSTR's borrowing capacity was likely capped out, given that the legacy company cashflows were barely covering interest costs. However, since then, MSTR has issued $5 billion more in 0% coupon convertible bonds, with $3 billion in December and $2 billion recently . This is in addition to continued share dilution. We can't comment on how that bet will work out for bond buyers, but the core idea remains that there's considerable investor interest in buying MSTR bonds, even if they aren't interest paying. This means that MSTR can leverage as much as they would like in the coming years, and that they're no longer fundamentally constrained by underlying business cash flows. This means that the momentum the stock saw up to that point, and the leveraged Bitcoin exposure, can very well continue on into the future. The company may not have to sell off Bitcoins at a loss. Secondly, and more importantly, the NAV gap between MSTR's market cap and the underlying treasury assets has shrunk considerably, which was the core of where this long Bitcoin short MSTR trade would have made money. When we issued the trade idea, MSTR was trading at roughly 2.7 - 3.1x NAV, depending on whether you include the normal share count or the diluted share count: mstr-tracker.com Either way, it was an incredible premium for the stock. Now, with the ratio coming back in much closer to 1x, we'd argue that the 'juice' in this mean reversion spread trade has largely been squeezed. It just doesn't look as attractive now, with less 'upside' to 'Fair Value'. Plus, there's also the risk that the stock could come become permanently valued at a premium to book, which further shrinks the profit window. Summary All told, we think the time has come to call it quits on our earlier pair trade call, given how the market has changed over the last few months. We'll take the short-term, 21% win. Now, it's time to issue the ratings adjustments to get 'back to flat'. Hence, our upgrade of MSTR to a 'Hold' rating. Stay safe out there!
Litecoin jumped as much as 18% over the past 24 hours, largely on expectations that it’s next in line for an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The rally came even as Bitcoin crashed again, dropping below $84,000, according to CoinGecko. That’s down from almost $96,000 on Feb 24. Bloomberg analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart recently put the odds of a Litecoin ETF being approved at 90%, a stat that has helped the so-called ‘silver to Bitcoin’s gold’ break out of a slump, outperforming the rest of the market substantially. To continue reading this as well as other DeFi and Web3 news, visit us at thedefiant.io
Bitcoin’s nosedive continued in the past 24 hours as the asset plunged to another multi-month low of just over $82,000 before it managed to recover some ground. Ethereum is the top loser from the larger-cap alts today, while LTC and AVAX stand with minor gains after another massacre. BTC Rebounds to $86K A lot can change in the cryptocurrency markets in the span of a week, and sometimes even less. Just last Friday, the largest of the bunch was climbing confidently toward $100,000 after gaining more than five grand in a few days. However, the Bybit hack stopped its ascent and pushed it south to $96,000 during the weekend. Trump’s tariffs and other controversial economic measures, as well as the growing concerns about rising inflation, pushed investors away from BTC and the ETFs, with massive outflows for several consecutive days now. The primary cryptocurrency dropped to $94,000 on Monday, but the real pain was observed on Tuesday, with a slump to $86,000, and on Wednesday, with another decline to $82,100 (on Bitstamp). The latter became the new three-month low. Although BTC has recovered some ground since then and now sits above $86,000, it’s still 3% down on the day. Its market cap has dropped to $1.7 trillion, and its dominance over the alts has decreased to 57.5% on CG. BTCUSD. Source: TradingView ETH Down, LTC Up Ethereum continues to dig new lows and dropped toward $2,200 yesterday. It now sits above $2,350, but it is still down by 5% since this time yesterday. XRP, BNB, DOGE, ADA, TRX, XLM, SUI, and TON are also in the red from the larger-cap alts. In contrast, AVAX and LTC have marked gains of over 3% within the same timeframe. APT has stolen the show after recent speculations about an ETF tracking its performance and has soared by 7% to over $6.1. The total crypto market cap, though, has shed another $70 billion since yesterday’s peak and is down to $2.970 trillion on CG. Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto The post Litecoin Defies Market Trends, Bitcoin Recovers From Drop to $82K (Market Watch) appeared first on CryptoPotato .