Coindesk

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Cardano’s ADA is trading higher, buoyed by Grayscale’s recent spot ETF application, while bitcoin (BTC) remains rangebound in a lackluster crypto market as we gear up for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress.

Powell takes the stage on Capitol Hill later Tuesday for his semi-annual update on monetary policy. He’ll start with the Senate and repeat his performance in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

The testimony is likely to do little to revive BTC’s upswing. The consensus is that Powell will uphold his data-dependent approach, reiterating that the central bank isn’t in a rush to cut interest rates anytime soon and is keen on observing more progress with inflation.

Data shared by Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz shows that market-implied inflation rates for the next two to five years have soared to their highest levels since early 2023. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s tariffs could underpin inflation. The CME’s FedWatch tool currently shows traders anticipate just 50 basis points in cuts by the end of next year, significantly less than the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) outlined in its December forecasts.

However, there’s a glimmer of hope: If the Consumer Price Index (CPI) release on Wednesday comes in weaker than expected, it could create some upside volatility.

In other news, Japanese mobile-game studio Gumi said it is planning to purchase bitcoin worth 1 billion yen ($6.6 million), following Tokyo-listed Metaplanet’s lead. Metaplanet began buying BTC last year and its shares soared a staggering 4,800% in 12 months.

Social media continues to buzz with debate over the imbalance in Ethereum’s ecosystem, where layer-2 scaling products retain most of the generated revenue while contributing only a small percentage back to the foundational layer. Solana, meanwhile, continues to outshine Ethereum and other smart-contract blockchains in decentralized exchange trading volumes and revenue.

In traditional markets, gold is taking bull breather while copper, often seen as proxy for global economic health, is trading lower, snapping a six-day winning streak. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto

Feb. 13: Start of Kraken’s gradual delisting of the USDT, PYUSD, EURT, TUSD, UST stablecoins for EEA clients. The process ends March. 31.

Feb. 13: Story (IP) mainnet launch.

Feb. 14: Dynamic TAO (DTAO) network upgrade goes live on the Bittensor (TAO) mainnet.

Feb. 14, 2:30 a.m. (Estimate): Qtum (QTUM) hard fork network upgrade.

Feb. 18, 10:00 a.m.: FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamas-based subsidiary of FTX, will start reimbursing creditors.

Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) will become the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging platform Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.

Macro

Feb. 11, 10:00 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome Powell presents his semi-annual report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Livestream link.

Feb. 11, 2:30 p.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee (“Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence”) hearing titled “A Golden Age of Digital Assets: Charting a Path Forward.” Witness include Jonathan Jachym, who is Kraken’s deputy general counsel. Livestream link.

Feb. 12, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.

Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.2%

Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.1% vs Prev. 3.2%

Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%

Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 2.9%

Feb. 12, 10:00 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome Powell presents his semi-annual report to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. Livestream link.

Feb. 13, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases January’’s Producer Price Index (PPI) report.

Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0%

Core PPI YoY Est. 3.3% vs. Prev. 3.5%

PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.2%

PPI YoY Prev. 3.3%

Feb. 13, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims report for the week ended Feb. 8.

Initial Jobless Claims Est. 216K vs. Prev. 219K

Earnings

Feb. 11: Exodus Movement (EXOD), post-market, $0.14 (2 ests.)

Feb. 11: HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE), post-market, $-0.15

Feb. 12: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, $0.05

Feb. 12: IREN (IREN), post-market, $-0.01

Feb. 12: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.25

Feb. 12: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.41

Feb. 13: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.89

Feb. 14: Remixpoint (TYO: 3825)

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Aave DAO is discussing recognizing HyperLend as a friendly fork of Aave deployed on the Hyperliquid EVM chain, as well as the deployment of Aave v3 on Ink, Kraken’s layer-2 rollup network.

Sky DAO is discussing, among other things, onboarding Arbitrum One to the Spark Liquidity layer, increasing the PSM2 rate limits on Base and minting 100 million USDS worth of sUSDS into Base to accommodate growth on the network.

Morpho DAO is discussing a 25% reduction in MORPHO rewards on both Ethereum and Base after another reduction took effect on Jan. 30.

DYdX DAO is voting on the dYdX Treasury subDAO taking control over the stDYDX within the protocol’s Community Treasury and any tokens accrued through auto compounding staking rewards.

Feb. 12 2 p.m. : Render (RENDER) to host an AI Scout Discord AMA session.

Unlocks

Feb. 12: Aethir (ATH) to unlock 10.21% of circulating supply worth $23.80 million.

Feb. 14: The Sandbox (SAND) to unlock 8.4% of circulating supply worth $80.2 million.

Feb. 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.13% of circulating supply worth $42.93 million.

Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.8 million.

Token Launches

Feb. 12: Avalon (AVL) to be listed on Bybit.

Feb. 12: Game7 (G7) to be listed on Bybit, Gate.io, HashKey, MEXC, XT, and KuCoin.

Feb. 13: EthereumPoW (ETHW) and Polygon (MATIC) to no longer be supported at Deribit.

Conferences:

CoinDesk’s Consensus to take place in Hong Kong on Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Feb. 12-13: Frankfurt Digital Finance (FDF) 2025

Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.

Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong

Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong

Feb. 23 to March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver, Colorado)

Feb. 24: RWA London Summit 2025

Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)

Derivatives Positioning

Litecoin’s near 10% price surge in the past 24 hours is accompanied by an 18% rise in perpetual futures open interest. HBAR, UNI have also seen notable increases in open interest, according to Velo Data.

Speaking of perpetual funding rates, SOL, SUI are seeing negative readings in a sign of bias for bearish short positions.

At 11%, ETH’s CME futures basis is greater than BTC’s, which may draw in carry traders, resulting in a strong uptake for ether spot ETFs.

BTC, ETH put skews on Deribit have eased slightly. Flows have been muted.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 0.62% from 4 p.m. ET Monday to $97,989.64 (24hrs: +0.27%)

ETH is up 0.53% at $2,702.45 (24hrs: +2.07%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 1.79% to 3,269.36 (24hrs: +1.77%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 8 bps to 3.05%

BTC funding rate is at 0.01% (10.95% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 108.31

Gold is up 0.58% at $2,931.2/oz

Silver is down 0.74% to $32.15/oz

Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 38,801.17

Hang Seng closed -1.06% at 21,294.86

FTSE is unchanged at 8,767.36

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.1% to 5,363.27

DJIA closed Monday +0.38% at 44,470.41

S&P 500 closed +0.67% at 6,066.44

Nasdaq closed +0.98% at 19,714.27

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.85% at 25,658.9

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.77% at 2,428.87

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was unchanged at 4.49%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.33% to 6,068.5

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.47% at 21,743.5

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.21% at 44,488

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.21% (-0.59%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02752 (0.77%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 802 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $53.19

Total Fees: 4.58 BTC / $445,648

CME Futures Open Interest: 166,695 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 33.3 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.46%

Technical Analysis

BTC’s monthly chart serves as an excellent illustration of how trendlines drawn from major price points act as support levels.

Over the past two months, the downside has consistently been capped at around $90,000. This level is defined by a trendline connecting the twin peaks from 2021.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $334.62 (+2.16%), up 0.15% at $335.11 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $280.22 (+2.09%), up 0.23% at $280.86 in pre-market.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$27.24 (+1.3%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.76 (unchanged), up 0.36% at $16.82 in pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.63 (-0.1%), down 0.1% at $11.62 in pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.82 (+2.07%), up 0.1% at $12.83 in pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.18 (-1.32%), down 0.54% at $11.12 in pre-market.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $23.50 (+1.51%), unchanged at $23.5 in pre-market.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $49.61 (+0.83%), up 2.6% at $50.90 in pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $51.18 (+5.81%), down 2.31% at $50 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$186.3 million

Cumulative net flows: $40.52 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.177 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$22.5 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.16 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.791 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Solana-based decentralized exchanges have hosted more trading volume than Ethereum since October.

While You Were Sleeping

Ether Has Underperformed, but Total Value Locked on Ethereum Is Rising: Citi (CoinDesk): A Citi research paper says ether has underperformed bitcoin this year, despite Ethereum’s improving fundamentals, rising total value locked (TVL), continued ETF inflows and potential for crypto-friendly U.S. regulation.

Hedge Funds Are Short Ether CME Futures Like Never Before. Is It Carry Trade or Outright Bearish Bets? (CoinDesk): Hedge funds hold record ether futures shorts on CME, mainly for carry trades profiting from the difference between spot ETH ETF and ETH futures pricing. Bearish bets may also be contributing.

Trump Sets 25% Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum, Widening Trade War (Bloomberg): President Trump placed a 25% tariff on all imported steel and aluminum, effective March 12, with the aim of boosting domestic production and creating new jobs.

Chinese Companies Don’t Know Where to Put Their Cash — and It’s Sparking a Record Rise in Dividend Payouts (CNBC): Chinese companies are offering record dividends and share buybacks, encouraged by government reforms to improve shareholder returns.

UK Inflation Threat Receding, Says BoE Rate-Setter Who Voted for Big Cut (Financial Times): Catherine Mann, an external member of Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, said she had voted for a 50 basis point rate cut last week, citing reduced inflationary pressures.

WazirX Offers 85% of Stolen User Funds as Rebalancing Ends (CoinDesk): Indian crypto exchange WazirX, hacked last year, hopes to start initial fund distribution in April, aiming to return 85% of the dollar value of users’ crypto holdings, with more to come later.

In the Ether

Solana is on track to extend its four-month run over Ethereum and other smart-contract blockchains in decentralized-exchange (DEX) volume even as the rangebound crypto market struggles to capture trader enthusiasm.

Solana-based DEXs have posted total trading volume of just over $60 million this month, nearly double the $34 million on Ethereum, the biggest smart-contract blockchain, according to data source DeFiLlama.

“Solana’s lower fees and higher throughput continue to attract developers and users, highlighting its growing role in decentralized finance,” Tagus Capital said.

Solana has held its pole position since October. Notably, in January, Solana-based DEXs achieved trading volume of $258 billion with Ethereum trailing at just $86 billion.

Solana’s dominance, powered by frenzied memecoin trading, is not limited to transaction volume. Despite its reputation as a low-cost blockchain, Solana has generated $25 million in revenue so far this month compared with Ethereum’s $16 million. In January, Solana earned $124 million, Ethereum $109 million.

The performance supports the bullish case in the SOL-ETH ratio, which peaked near 0.09 in January and has since pulled back to 0.075, data from charting platform TradingView show.

Still, Tagus Capital noted that Solana’s total value locked (TVL) at $9 billion remains much lower than Ethereum’s $57 billion.

More than $500 million was lost to memecoin rug pulls and scams in 2024, according to a report by crypto intelligence platform Merkle Science.

The most prolific scams involved social engineering, which is a technique that relies on impersonation and manipulation to gain access to someone’s personal data – often in this case celebrities or well-known tech figures.

One of these cases saw scammers compromise French footballer Kylian Mbappe’s X account. Once they gained access, a link was posted to a nefarious memecoin which rose to a $460 million market cap before being rug pulled.

There was also a case involving music artist Wiz Khalifa that targeted his 35.7 million followers on X. A fake WIZ token was promoted, rising to a $3.4 million market cap before plummeting to zero.

“These scams aren’t just opportunistic—they’re highly coordinated operations that exploit trust at scale,” Robert Whitaker, director of law enforcement affairs at Merkle Science told CoinDesk.

“Hackers are no longer just breaching wallets or exchanges; they’re hijacking the credibility of celebrities and industry leaders to manipulate markets in real time. Our research shows that meme coin rug pulls alone accounted for hundreds of millions in losses this year, with platforms like X being the primary battleground.”

Merkle Science’s report reveals that 75% of all attacks took place on X and 19% on YouTube. 44% of the reported social engineering scams resulted in rug pulls, while phishing attacks was also attributed to 44% of all scams.

Non-fungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea denied reports that users claiming a potential airdrop will be forced to complete detailed identification, or know-your-customer (KYC), checks.

“This is all completely false,” OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer wrote on X in response to a post that referred to the terms and conditions on the OpenSea Foundation website.

The terms and conditions also said users would be restricted from using VPNs and users in the U.S. would not be able to claim. The page contained “boilerplate language” and was “on a test website for a short period of time,” Finzer said.

Speculation over an OpenSea airdrop has been swirling since December after it registered an entity named OpenSea Foundation in the Cayman Islands, coinciding with the release of a new version of the platform dubbed “OS2.”

X user Adam Hollander said that he had a conversation with the OpenSea chief and “folks in the USA will be happy with the Foundation’s actual announcement when they make it,” seemingly confirming an airdrop will take place.

Polymarket odds weighing whether OpenSea would issue an airdrop before April spiked from 25% to 45% following Finzer’s tweets.

Trading volume on OpenSea has experienced a significant drop since the previous bull run in 2022, when it notched a record $2.7 billion of volume in a single day. Volume for all of January this year was just $194 million, according to Dune.

WazirX hack victims will receive 85% of their portfolio value as recorded on Jul.18 as the exchange completed its asset rebalancing on Tuesday, with the first round of distributions slated in April.

As of Tuesday, users can see both the U.S. dollar and Indian rupee values of assets that were lost in a $230 million hack in July 2024. Upside from unstolen tokens belonging to individuals have been distributed across all users, allowing for a higher amount to be returned to users.

Creditors now have until Feb.19 to accept the rebalancing under the current scheme, with a majority vote of 75% required for the plan to move forward.

Part of the refund plan is to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX), issue recovery tokens that can be traded, and perform a periodic buyback of recovery tokens using platform profits and new revenue streams over the next three years.

However, if the scheme is not approved, the restructuring plan fails and the process moves towards liquidation under section 301 of the Singapore Companies Act — potentially leading to a fire sale of assets and creditors receiving less compensation as assets are sold off at possibly lower values.

WazirX was hit by a security breach in one of its multisig wallets last July, causing over $100 million in shiba inu (SHIB) and $52 million in ether, among other assets, to be drained from the exchange.

The stolen funds accounted for over 45% of the total reserves cited by the exchange in a June 2024 report, leading to a restructuring process to clear liabilities. North Korean hacking unit Lazarus is believed to be behind the attack, as CoinDesk previously reported.

Ether (ETH) has underperformed year-to-date, declining over 20%, but fundamentals are improving and total value locked (TVL) on the Ethereum blockchain has risen dramatically, Wall Street bank Citi (C) said in a research report Monday.

“While user activity has been volatile in recent weeks, the fundamental backdrop is not all that murky,” analysts led by Alex Saunders wrote.

Citi noted that TVL on the Ethereum network has risen sharply, while ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are still seeing inflows, and search interest is rising.

Following the U.S. election in November, ether ETF flows turned positive, the report noted, with total inflows of $3.2 billion since their July launch.

Stronger user growth on layer-2s and rival blockchain’s such as Solana has raised questions about Ethereum’s competitive advantage, the report said.

President Trump’s World Liberty Financial holds more than $200 million of ether, and this could be viewed as “additional motivation for ensuring the U.S. strengthens its support for the crypto industry,” the bank said.

“Relative ETH and altcoin performance may serve as a gauge for how optimistic the industry is regarding follow-through on regulatory clarity in the U.S.,” the report added.

Citi noted that weakness in ether has coincided with an increase in bitcoin (BTC) dominance, which is now at multi-year highs above 60%.

Read more: Ethereum Faces ‘Intense’ Competition From Other Networks: JPMorgan

Hedge funds hold record short positions in ether (ETH) futures trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), raising questions about the motivations behind these positions.

At first glance, the data could suggest that sophisticated market players anticipate price slides, as discussed on social media. However, this isn’t entirely accurate; carry trades or arbitrage plays primarily drive the record short interest, but some of these short futures trades represent outright bearish bets on the cryptocurrency, per observers.

As of the week ended Feb. 4, hedge funds held a net short position of 11,341 contracts in the CME futures, according to data tracked by ZeroHedge and the Kobeissi Letter. The number has increased 40% in one week and 500% since November, according to The Kobeissi Letter.

“There is evidence suggesting that a notable portion of the short interest in Ether futures is tied to the carry trade. Despite macro headwinds and Ether’s relative underperformance, U.S. ETH ETF inflows have remained steady over the past three months, coinciding with an increase in futures short interest—potentially signaling an uptick in basis trades,” Thomas Erdösi, head of product at CF Benchmarks, told CoinDesk.

CF Benchmarks provides reference rates that underpin CME’s bitcoin (BTC) and ether derivatives.

Carry trades, also known as basis trades, seek to profit from price discrepancies between the two markets. In ETH’s case, it involves hedge funds shorting the CME futures while simultaneously buying the spot ether ETFs listed in the U.S.

“Hedge funds, in particular, appear to be active in this trade through regulated venues, in this case selling CME Ether Futures while buying ETHA [BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF]. Additionally, Ethereum’s basis has occasionally exceeded Bitcoin’s, making Ether carry trades more attractive,” Erdosi said.

Erdosi explained that the short interest has increased by roughly $470 million recently, which corresponds with the inflow of around $480 million in spot ETFs, which validates the argument.

That said, the overall short interest in the CME futures could involve some outright bearish bets to hedge against downside risks in ether. Traders could be shorting ether futures as a hedge against long bets in the altcoin complex.

“However, not all hedge fund short interest is necessarily driven by basis trades—some may be outright shorts given ETH’s lagging performance, particularly against other programmable settlement chains like SOL and a broader rally in altcoins,” Erdosi added.

ETH options on both the CME and offshore giant Deribit show a bias for put options expiring in the near-term. It’s a sign of lingering downside fears in ether.

A put option gives the purchaser the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date. A put buyer is implicitly bearish on the market, looking to hedge against or profit from an expected price drop in the underlying asset. A call buy is implicitly bullish.

Long-end ETH options show pricier calls, a sign of bullish long-term expectations.

Odds of a litecoin (LTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) going live in the coming months jumped to over 90% with dogecoin (DOGE) next at 75% odds, well-followed ETF analyst James Seyffart said in an X post late Monday.

Seyffart made similar predictions for bitcoin (BTC) ETFs before the products went live in 2024. Several providers have filed ETFs for various major tokens in the past year under the Biden administration to low interest from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

LTC is up 15% in the past 24 hours, beating a 2% increase in bitcoin (BTC), with DOGE up 6%.

A shifting regulatory climate has buoyed approval hopes, however, with the SEC already passing initial checks for certain tokens in the past weeks.

“We’re putting out relatively high odds of approval across the board. Mainly focused on Litecoin, Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin for now,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Seyffart said. “Big implications/expectations in these odds are that Filings will be acknowledged. Likely this week for XRP and Dogecoin.”

“The odds for everything on this list –Aside from maybe Litecoin– would have been VERY very low if Dems were still in control,” Seyffart added. Prospective litecoin ETFs could see inflows of up to $580 million if investors adopt them at the same rate as the bitcoin ETFs, as CoinDesk previously reported.

Odds given by the analyst XRP and SOL products are under 70% as of Tuesday. Headwinds for XRP products come from a chance of possible appeals of the now-settled SEC’s case against related company Ripple Labs.

Cardano’s ADA token surged 11%, outperforming bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), after Grayscale Investments applied for the first-ever spot ADA exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S.

ADA jumped to 80 cents, with the move starting late Wednesday, according to CoinDesk data. However, the ninth-largest cryptocurrency by market value, is still down 36% from its December high of around $1.37.

Grayscale, a prominent crypto asset manager, filed to list the first ever spot ADA fund on the New York Stock Exchange. A spot ETF would enable investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without having to own it directly.

Bitcoin and ether spot ETFs began trading in the U.S. last year, attracting billions in investor funds since their inception and bolstering the narrative of institutional adoption.

Note that the U.S. SEC’s approval of spot BTC and ETH ETFs was primarily based on the assumption that the CME’s surveillance system for bitcoin and ether futures would mitigate concerns about price manipulation. In other words, CME futures have been a prerequisite for obtaining spot ETF approval. The global derivatives giant is yet to list ADA futures.

The market doesn’t seem worried about that, as evidenced by ADA’s price spike.

Focus on Layer 1 coins

The cryptocurrency and its Layer 1 peers like BTC, ETH, SOL and others could remain well supported in days ahead as social media chatter suggests a shift in investor bias from memecoins to layer 1 coins, according to analytics firm Santiment.

“The crypto community has largely shifted their attention to Bitcoin and other Layer 1 assets like Ethereum, Solana, Toncoin, and Cardano. Collectively, the top Layer 1 assets are getting 44.2% of discussions among specific coins. Meanwhile, top meme coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Pepe are being discussed less and less across social media,” Santiment said on X.

“A shift in trader attention from meme coins to Bitcoin and Layer 1 assets is generally a sign of a more stable and sustainable market environment,” Santiment added.

BTC in stasis

Bitcoin continues to trade lacklustre between $95,000 to $100,000, with upside likely capped by trade war fears and rising inflation expectations in the U.S. Ether, the second-largest token by market value, has been locked between $2,500-$2,900 since recovering from last Monday’s crash to $2,000 on several exchanges.

Macro traders have recently pivoted to gold, sending the yellow metal’s price to all time highs above $2,900 per ounce.

Some analysts said bitcoin will have the last laugh.

“The recent decrease in volatility, coupled with the rising price of gold, should highlight Bitcoinʼs growing appeal as an alternative store of value. Despite short-term fluctuations, Bitcoinʼs fundamental narrative remains intact, with increasing institutional interest and its positioning as a potential hedge against inflation and currency devaluation continuing to support its long-term potential,” analysts at Bitfinex said.

“A shift [away from gold] may be underway. Over $196 billion worth of Bitcoin is now held by ETFs, public and private companies, and even nation states. With central banks expanding money supply and fiat devaluation risks rising, Bitcoinʼs fixed-supply narrative is becoming increasingly attractive,” analysts added.

Crypto investment firm Grayscale on Monday filed to list a Cardano (ADA) exchange traded fund on the New York Stock Exchange.

Grayscale, which last year broke through U.S. regulators’ blockade against the bitcoin ETF, has never previously offered a standalone ADA investment vehicle despite making past moves to do so.

But the Trump 2.0 SEC’s pivot from policing the crypto industry to seemingly embracing it has emboldened issuers to think big about what they can get through. In recent weeks Grayscale filed for a Solana and XRP ETF as well.

Those products would convert Grayscale’s preexisting crypto trust products into more widely tradeable ETFs whereas the ADA ETF would be entirely new.

Investor demand has always been high for the flagship asset of the Cardano blockchain. ADA ranks among the largest crypto assets by market cap, weighing in at $25 billion at press time. The token spiked 1.5% to 71 cents following the Grayscale news.

Market observers increasingly believe the time is nigh for altcoin ETFs to clear the not-quite-as-skeptical SEC. But an ADA vehicle had not been on many commentators’ radars despite the coin’s popularity.

Grayscale did not immediately return a request for comment.