Suehyeon Lee

About $200 million flowed into US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to TraderT on the 16th (local time), total net inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs came to $199.19 million (about KRW 297.0 billion) on the day. That marked net inflows for a sixth consecutive session. Inflows were led by products from BlackRock and Fidelity. BlackRock’s IBIT posted net inflows of $139.05 million, while Fidelity’s FBTC saw $64.53 million. In addition, Bitwise (BITB) and Franklin Templeton (EZBC) recorded inflows of $2.82 million and $2.14 million, respectively. By contrast, ARK Invest’s ARKB and VanEck’s HODL saw net outflows of $3.07 million and $6.28 million, respectively. The remaining products recorded no net flows.

Bitcoin (BTC) extended its rally, breaking above $75,000. The move is seen as being driven by rapid unwinding of bearish bets in the derivatives market, which helped propel prices higher. According to CoinDesk on the 16th (local time), bitcoin rose intraday to as high as $75,800, breaking through the $73,750–$74,400 resistance zone that had capped gains on three occasions since 2024. Analysts say the latest rise was largely influenced by an increase in put option selling and liquidations in the options market. Markus Thielen of 10x Research explained, “The recent rally reflects large-scale unwinding as the likelihood that put options with strikes at $55,000 and $60,000 would finish in the money before expiry diminished.” Put options are a hedging tool against price declines, and investors typically buy them when they expect the market to fall. However, as recent market stability reduced the likelihood of a downturn, existing positions were liquidated, adding upward pressure, according to the analysis. In particular, the put-option liquidation process is also seen to have further lifted prices as market makers bought bitcoin to balance positions in a “hedge rebalancing.” Still, some caution that the rally’s staying power is uncertain, as it has been driven more by the unwinding of existing bearish bets than by aggressive new buying. In fact, clear signals of strong bullish positioning—such as a surge in call option buying—have yet to emerge. Altcoins also strengthened alongside bitcoin. Ether (ETH) rose about 8%, while XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL) gained 8% and 4%, respectively.

The probability of Bitcoin (BTC) reaching $80,000 this month has climbed to a record high. According to Watcher.Guru on the 16th (local time), Polymarket data show the odds of Bitcoin breaking above $80,000 this month at 52%—the highest reading on record for the metric. Bitcoin has recently extended its upward momentum in the mid-$70,000 range, with investor sentiment appearing to improve. On CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is trading at $74,927.64, up 3.3% from the previous day.

YZi Labs has made an investment in RoboForce, a next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) robotics company. On the 16th (local time), YZi Labs said on X that it led a $52 million funding round for AI robotics company RoboForce. The round also reportedly brought Ella Zhang, managing partner at YZi Labs, onto the board. RoboForce develops a robot labor system based on “Physical AI” and is building its “TITAN” platform that can be deployed across high-intensity industrial worksites including solar power, data centers, logistics, mining and manufacturing. The company said it has secured letters of intent (LOIs) for more than 11,000 robots. In particular, it is advancing an AI-based data training architecture through collaboration with Nvidia, and is pursuing a scaling strategy that leverages data accumulated during industrial robot operations. RoboForce is also known as a company Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang mentioned directly at the GTC conference. With this investment, YZi Labs is expanding its investment portfolio in robotics and Physical AI. The industry sees the firm broadening its investment focus beyond digital infrastructure into AI-driven industrial automation and biotechnology. YZi Labs said, “We are strengthening investments in areas that build the foundations of future industries, including AI infrastructure and biotechnology.”

Bitcoin (BTC) has regained the $75,000 level as risk appetite has recovered in global financial markets. As of 9:11 a.m. on the 17th (KST), Bitcoin was trading at $75,072.38, up 2.96% from the previous day, according to CoinMarketCap. On Upbit’s KRW market, it was trading at 110,999,000 won, up 0.84% from the previous day. Major altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH), are also rebounding. Ethereum was trading at $2,369.15 on CoinMarketCap, up 8.79% from the previous day, while XRP (XRP) was trading at $1.54, up 5.95% from the previous day. The gains are seen as being driven by a combination of a rebound in the Nasdaq index, a decline in international oil prices, and improving U.S. manufacturing indicators, which together strengthened risk-on sentiment.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $74,000 to hit its highest level in 40 days, but analysts say cautious sentiment persists in the derivatives market. According to Cointelegraph on the 16th (local time), bitcoin broke through the $74,000 level that day. The move was seen as being driven by a risk-on mood fueled by a rise in the Nasdaq index, a decline in oil prices, and improving US manufacturing indicators. Still, conviction behind the uptrend appears limited in the bitcoin derivatives market. The annualized premium on monthly bitcoin futures remained around 2% versus spot, well below the 4–8% range considered neutral. This is seen as reflecting weak investor sentiment over the past month. Market participants have cited several factors behind bitcoin’s weakness in recent months. They point to the lack of a concrete implementation timetable for the US strategic bitcoin reserve policy, as well as a large liquidation event worth about $19 billion in October last year that sharply reduced market leverage. The options market also shows investors’ defensive stance. Deribit’s bitcoin options delta skew has held around 13%, extending caution over downside risk for a fifth straight week. Institutional demand continues. Strategy bought an additional 22,337 BTC last week, and US spot bitcoin ETFs also posted net inflows totaling about 11,117 BTC. However, with uncertainty still high around macro factors such as Middle East geopolitical risks and oil-price volatility, the market view is that bearish sentiment in derivatives has not been fully dispelled.

AI-related crypto assets (cryptocurrencies) extended gains after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang laid out a vision for scaling AI infrastructure. According to CoinDesk on the 16th (local time), AI-themed blockchain project Near Protocol (NEAR) rose more than 10% over the past 24 hours, marking its highest level since late January. The token of the decentralized AI project Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) also jumped as much as nearly 20% intraday. Worldcoin (WLD), an identity-based project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, also gained about 10% and traded around $0.40. Grass (GRASS), a decentralized network that provides unused internet bandwidth for AI training, rose about 13%, setting a new year-to-date high. The moves came after Huang’s keynote at the GTC developer conference, where he pointed to a looming expansion in demand for AI infrastructure. Huang said cumulative semiconductor demand could reach about $1 trillion by 2027. He added that roughly 60% of that would likely be accounted for by major cloud companies. He also cited the spread of “agentic AI” systems drawing attention among developers and introduced the “NemoClaw” project, an enterprise-oriented refinement of the concept. While crypto assets were not mentioned directly in the speech, the market is focusing on the possibility that autonomous AI agents may use blockchain-based infrastructure for payments and interactions. At the same time, more blockchain projects are emerging to build computing power-sharing networks and AI training data networks. Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA) shares—seen as a bellwether for AI investment—rose about 2% during the keynote, but later pared gains to close up about 1.5% on the day.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which holds Ethereum (ETH) as a corporate treasury asset, has sharply increased the pace of its recent ETH purchases. According to Cointelegraph on the 16th (local time), Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee said the company bought an additional roughly 60,999 ETH last week. This is a significant increase from the recent weekly average purchase volume of 45,000–50,000 ETH. Of that amount, 5,000 ETH was purchased directly from the Ethereum Foundation via an over-the-counter (OTC) transaction. The deal is said to have been structured to allow the foundation to secure operating funds without directly selling ETH on the market. With the latest purchase, Bitmine’s total Ethereum holdings increased to about 4.596 million ETH, equivalent to roughly 3.81% of total ETH supply. The company said its total assets—including crypto holdings, cash and other investments—stand at about $11.5 billion. Bitmine is using about 3.04 million ETH (about 66%) of its holdings for staking. At current prices, that is worth about $6.6 billion, and it is estimated to generate about $180 million a year in staking income. Meanwhile, the market is also focusing on the growing number of cases in which companies hold Ethereum as part of their treasury strategy. According to CoinGecko, 30 listed companies across seven countries hold a total of about 6.6 million ETH, which corresponds to about 5.47% of total supply.

XRP has broken through a key resistance level, pushing above the upper bound of a months-long consolidation range. According to CoinDesk on the 16th (local time), XRP rose over the past 24 hours from about $1.41 to $1.47, showing volatility in the roughly 4–5% range. In particular, analysts say the short-term bullish momentum strengthened after it punched through the $1.426 resistance level, which had repeatedly capped gains. The move is seen as being driven less by a specific catalyst than by buying that followed a technical breakout. Trading volume also climbed to around 170 million XRP during the breakout, underpinning the advance. Some in the market interpret the breakout as a potential near-term signal of a trend shift, given that XRP has repeatedly met resistance in the mid-$1.40s since the start of the year while remaining range-bound. Network activity is also gradually expanding. The scale of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization on the XRP Ledger rose to about $1.14 billion in the first quarter of this year, suggesting growing ecosystem utilization. The outlet noted that, technically, the $1.43–$1.44 area is a near-term support zone. If that area holds, attempts to break the next resistance band at $1.48–$1.50 could follow. If the price falls back below $1.43, however, the recent breakout momentum could fade, raising the possibility of a pullback toward the prior range floor around $1.39–$1.40.

Bitcoin (BTC) appears to be strengthening its bullish momentum after breaking above the 50-day moving average, a key technical indicator, for the first time in about two months. According to CoinDesk on the 16th (local time), Bitcoin has risen more than 3% over the past 24 hours to around $73,700. That puts it above the 50-day moving average, which had been formed near $71,125—an outcome the market is reading as a signal to gauge the potential for a medium-term trend reversal. The 50-day moving average is among the most widely used momentum indicators, and analysts say a breakout above it can reinforce a medium-term uptrend. Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, explained, “The 50-day moving average is a representative indicator of the medium-term trend, and a decisive break above it could mark an important turning point for the market.” Recently, Bitcoin has maintained a relatively resilient performance despite the war in Iran and heightened volatility in global equities. In particular, it has kept its gains even as Asian stock markets weaken, drawing market attention. Still, some caution that a technical breakout does not automatically translate into a long-term uptrend. In fact, in January this year Bitcoin also broke above the 50-day moving average and rose about 8%, but the rally faded in roughly two weeks. The market also notes that volatility could increase if Bitcoin approaches the $75,000 level. At that price range, market makers hold large net short gamma positions, meaning hedging flows could be triggered as prices rise, amplifying volatility.

A short-term spike in the crypto (cryptocurrency) market triggered large-scale liquidations of short positions. According to Watcher.Guru on the 16th (local time), roughly $115 million worth of crypto short positions were liquidated over the past hour. This occurred as rising prices forced short-sell positions to be liquidated, which the market interprets as a short-term short squeeze. Typically, when short-position liquidations occur on a large scale, liquidation orders add to buying pressure, tending to amplify the price increase. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) briefly touched the $74,000 level and is now trading at $73,626.72, up 2.85% from the previous day, according to CoinMarketCap.

Token unlocks (releases from lockups) totaling about $400 million are scheduled over the coming week. According to Tokenomist data cited by Wu Blockchain on the 15th (local time), projects set to see large, one-off token unlocks of at least $5 million over the next seven days include LayerZero (ZRO), Bard (BARD), River (RIVER), Arbitrum (ARB), Multibank Group (MBG), EasyMoney (YZY) and Kaito (KAITO). A number of linear unlocks are also scheduled, with more than $1 million released per day. These include Rain (RAIN), Solana (SOL), Canton (CC), River (RIVER), Official Trump (TRUMP), Worldcoin (WLD), Dogecoin (DOGE), Aster (ASTER) and Bittensor (TAO). Combined, the total volume of unlocks across these projects is estimated to exceed $438 million. The market is watching closely as large unlock schedules can act as a near-term source of selling pressure. In particular, for low-liquidity tokens, an influx of unlocked supply into the market could also amplify price volatility.

Strategy, which has continued its plan to amass large bitcoin (BTC) holdings, would need to purchase more than roughly 6,000 BTC additionally each week to reach its goal of holding 1 million BTC by the end of the year. According to Wu Blockchain on the 15th (local time), for Strategy to achieve its target of holding 1 million bitcoins by the end of 2026, it would need to buy an average of about 6,158 BTC per week over the remaining roughly 42 weeks. As of now, Strategy’s bitcoin holdings are tallied at about 738,731 BTC. To reach the target, it would need an additional roughly 261,269 BTC. Assuming an average bitcoin price of $85,000 per coin, calculations show that additional funds of about $22.2 billion would need to be deployed to secure the remaining amount. Strategy has maintained an aggressive buying strategy this year as well. Since the start of the year it has purchased an additional 64,948 BTC in total, including 17,994 BTC bought just last week.

An analysis suggests that as weakness in Ethereum’s (ETH) spot market deepens, a derivatives-led trading structure is becoming more entrenched. According to CryptoQuant contributor Darkfost on the 15th (local time), Ethereum has recently seen the share of futures trading versus spot surge, signaling weakening spot demand. In particular, on Binance, futures trading volume was found to have risen to roughly six times spot volume. Darkfost pointed to rising macroeconomic uncertainty as a key driver of this trend. With geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran escalating, upward pressure on global oil prices has persisted—something that could also weigh on the U.S. economy and monetary policy. Recent inflation readings show core consumer prices (CPI) up 2.5% year on year, while core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation—watched more closely by the Federal Reserve (Fed)—came in at 3.1%. With oil prices also rising, concerns are growing that inflation pressures could re-accelerate. Darkfost said that in this environment, investor capital is gradually rotating out of risk assets such as cryptocurrencies. At the same time, a stronger dollar and rising long-term Treasury yields are pushing asset allocation in a more defensive direction. On-chain data also corroborate this pattern. Binance’s Ethereum futures open interest (OI) has fallen by about 400,000 ETH since January this year, translating into a decline of roughly $4 billion. Even so, the ratio of futures to spot trading has slid to its lowest level since the end of the bear market. This is seen as a sign that even as the market structure becomes more futures-centric, spot-market demand is relatively weakening. Darkfost explained that “the current Ethereum market is one in which derivatives trading exerts a greater influence on price formation amid weak spot demand.” Some in the market also argue that concerns over potential selling by the Ethereum Foundation or Vitalik Buterin are contributing to a more cautious investor mood.

Allegations have surfaced that a document exists outlining a payment agreement worth $5 million tied to the promotion of Argentina President Javier Milei’s memecoin ‘LIBRA’. According to El Destape, an Argentine investigative outlet cited by The Block on the 15th (local time), a document detailing the alleged agreement was found on the mobile phone of cryptocurrency lobbyist Mauricio Novelli. The document was reportedly secured during an analysis of seized devices by DATIP, a digital forensics unit under the Argentine prosecutor’s office. The report said the document was written on Feb. 11, 2025—three days before President Milei mentioned the LIBRA coin on social media platform X. It reportedly included the phrase “final agreement discussed with H” and described a three-stage payment structure totaling $5 million. Specifically, it called for an upfront payment of $1.5 million in tokens or cash, plus an additional $1.5 million if President Milei publicly mentioned Hayden Davis on X as his adviser. It also reportedly included a condition that $2 million would be paid if President Milei signed a blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) advisory contract. El Destape reported that the “H” referenced in the document appears to refer to Hayden Davis, a key figure in the LIBRA project and CEO of Kelsier Ventures. However, the document did not clearly specify who the actual recipient of the payments would be. The report explained that the structure suggests the funds could be paid to President Milei, his sister Karina Milei, and intermediaries linked to Davis’ side. The forensic analysis also reportedly confirmed call records among people involved around the time of the LIBRA coin’s launch. It said records show Milei spoke with Novelli multiple times immediately before and after he mentioned LIBRA on X at 7:01 p.m. on Feb. 14, 2025. LIBRA’s market capitalization briefly topped $4 billion after Milei’s post, but its price later plunged more than 90%. Eight wallets linked to the project reportedly cashed out about $107 million. President Milei has repeatedly denied the allegations. Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office concluded in June last year that the post was a personal statement rather than an official act and that there was no breach of public ethics rules. However, a federal criminal investigation and a class-action lawsuit filed in the United States are still ongoing.

Bitcoin (BTC) extended its rebound over the weekend, climbing back above the $73,000 level. As of 8:09 a.m. KST on the 16th, Bitcoin was trading at $73,041.99 on CoinMarketCap, up 2.76% from the previous day. On Upbit’s KRW market, it was changing hands at 107.03 million won, up 1.87% from the prior day. Major altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH), were also gaining. Ethereum was up 4.89% day on day to $2,200.06 on CoinMarketCap, while XRP was trading at $1.45, up 3.87% from the previous day.