Last week’s crypto market price and volume indices dropped by -3.89% and -17.45%, respectively, while the volatility index was up +50.73%.
Bitcoin (BTC) settled at close to US$66,000 by the end of last week. On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve announced it will keep interest rates steady, as expected, and maintained the outlook of three rate cuts this year. It also raised the US real GDP growth outlook for 2024 to 2.1% (1.4% previously). The dovish remarks sent BTC higher, reaching above $68,000 intra-day, compared to its weekly lows near $61,000 earlier in the day.
The recent surge in volatility was led mainly by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Solana (SOL). SOL surpassed the $200 mark on 18 March following the high demand for meme coins like dogwifhat (WIF). However, SOL’s price retraced and was down 7% to end the week as meme coins generally followed a similar downward trend.
Chart of the Week
Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw five consecutive days of net outflows last week, marking the largest week of net outflows since the 10 Spot ETFs started trading in January 2024.
The total net outflows for the week amounted to $888 million. However, this is mainly led by the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) which had a record weekly net outflow of $2 billion. Other large players, including BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s FBTC, had a weekly net inflow of $828 million and $79 million respectively.
Weekly Performance
BTC and Ether (ETH) fell by -1.4% and -3.5%, respectively, in the past seven days. On the other hand, the price action for other selected top market cap tokens was mixed. Notably, ICP and BCH outperformed.
Selected key categories showed minor fluctuations in terms of market capitalisation changes in the past seven days, with the Layer-2 category outperforming the rest by a significant margin.
News Highlights
BlackRock unveiled its first tokenised fund on the Ethereum network. The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, or BUIDL, is backed by cash, US Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements. It allows token holders to earn a yield. BlackRock also made a strategic investment in Securitize, an asset tokenisation company.
MicroStrategy, founded by Michael Saylor, acquired an additional 9,245 Bitcoin on 19 March 2024, bringing its total holdings to 214,245 BTC. This represents over 1% of Bitcoin’s total supply.
Alipay, an online payment platform,collaborated with Avalanche on a Web3-enabled voucher programme. The programme was rolled out across Southeast Asia milk tea stores, with Alipay users being able to obtain discount vouchers by playing a mini game. This is reportedly the first phase out of a two-part proof of concept. Alipay aims to roll out the programme to over 2,000 stores and reach more than 100 million users.
The Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan, one of the world’s largest pension funds, said it is looking for “basic information on illiquid assets”. These assets include cryptocurrencies and gold. This is part of the fund’s long-term plan to explore portfolio diversification strategies.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission postponed its decision deadline on 4 Ethereum ETF applications to late-May. These include VanEck, Hashdex, and ARK 21Shares’ Spot Ether ETFs as well as Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust Futures ETF.
Multiple interest rate decisions were made last week:
The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at 5.25%-5.50% in its recent meeting and maintained its forecast of three interest rate cuts in 2024.
The Swiss National Bank lowered its main policy rate by 25bps to 1.5%, becoming the first member to cut rates since the pandemic, out of the ten-most traded currencies in the world.
2023 Year Review & 2024 Year Ahead: 2023 has been an eventful year for the crypto industry. In this report, we curate the top crypto events and trends of 2023, followed by our outlook for 2024.
What Is dogwifhat and How to Buy WIF: dogwifhat has taken the meme coin narrative by storm. Here’s what to know about the latest dog coin and why it’s so successful.
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Crypto Market Pulse Weekly – 📉 Spot Bitcoin ETFs Saw Largest Weekly Net Outflows Since Jan 2024
Spot Bitcoin ETF saw largest week of net outflows since Jan 2024. BlackRock launches first tokenised fund on Ethereum, BUIDL. Japan Government Pension Fund seeks information on crypto.
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