Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Alex and this is the Token Metrics Daily
Speaker 1: Pulse for Tuesday, February seventeenth. We've got a lot to
Speaker 1: unpack today. Bitcoin's long term holders are showing some real strain.
Speaker 1: Narratives are getting absolutely hammered across the board, and there's
Speaker 1: exact before we dive in, a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into it. Only one corner of
Speaker 1: crypto that's actually in the green. Let's dig in. Here's
Speaker 1: what you need to know right now. Bitcoin's long term holders,
Speaker 1: the people who've been holding for years, the ones we
Speaker 1: usually think of as the bedrock of the market, they're
Speaker 1: starting to sell on chain data is flagging fifty four
Speaker 1: thousand as the next major support level if we break
Speaker 1: below sixty five thousand, and across the entire crypto market,
Speaker 1: only one narrative is actually up this week. One that's
Speaker 1: prediction markets. Everything else is bleeding. Bitcoin sitting around sixty
Speaker 1: seven thousand, eight hundred, down about one point four percent
Speaker 1: on the day. Ethereum's at one thousand dollars dollars nine
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven, basically flat. Solana's holding around eighty
Speaker 1: five dollars total market cap is two point four trillion
Speaker 1: dollars dollars and we're in full risk off mode. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: dominance is holding steady at fifty six point four percent,
Speaker 1: which tells you alts aren't catching any bids either. Volume
Speaker 1: is moderate at ninety five billion dollars in twenty four
Speaker 1: hour trading. DeFi total value locked is flat at about
Speaker 1: ninety six billion dollars. Nothing's moving much, but nothing's moving
Speaker 1: up either. All right, let's break down what's actually happening
Speaker 1: in the market. First up, you know, Bitcoin's long term
Speaker 1: holders are cracking. Look when I say long term holders,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the people who've been sitting on bitcoin
Speaker 1: for years. They're the foundation, and right now on chain
Speaker 1: data shows they're distributing instead of accumulating. That's a shift.
Speaker 1: The February sell off has changed the behavior from buy
Speaker 1: the dip to maybe this is the dip. Bitcoin's near
Speaker 1: protocol sixty eight thousand, and the conviction layer underneath is thinning.
Speaker 1: If we lose sixty five thousand on a daily close
Speaker 1: the next the meaningful support cluster is down at fifty
Speaker 1: four thousand. That's a lot of air between here and there.
Speaker 1: If bitcoin reclaims seventy thousand US instead, this was just
Speaker 1: profit taking. But if we keep sliding, that's a regime change. Second,
Speaker 1: Ethereum's tokenized real world assets just hit seventeen billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That's up nearly three hundred and fifteen percent year over year.
Speaker 1: But here's the weird part. The RWA narrative tokens themselves
Speaker 1: are down sixteen percent on the week. So the actual
Speaker 1: assets on Ethereum are exploding in value, but the tokens
Speaker 1: betting on the RWA story are getting crushed. It's like
Speaker 1: watching real estate values climb while the r e iites tank.
Speaker 1: The infrastructure is winning, the speculation on top of the
Speaker 1: infrastructure is losing. For Ethereum bulls, this is actually the
Speaker 1: most important chart right now. Seventeen billion dollars in real assets.
Speaker 1: Choosing your chain is a stronger signal than any token price. Third,
Speaker 1: Bitcoin just recoupled with tech stocks. For months, crypto bulls
Speaker 1: were pointing to Bitcoin's decoupling as proof it was becoming
Speaker 1: digital gold. That story just got rewritten. The correlation flipped positive,
Speaker 1: which means Bitcoin is trading like a risk asset again,
Speaker 1: not a hedge. And when risk off hits, the most
Speaker 1: speculative stuff gets hit hardest. Memic coins are down sixteen
Speaker 1: percent on the week. The AI narrative is even worse
Speaker 1: at minus twenty three percent. The only thing in the
Speaker 1: green prediction markets at plus one point nine percent. When
Speaker 1: the only thing going up is people betting on outcomes,
Speaker 1: that tells you something about conviction levels everywhere else. Fourth
Speaker 1: DeFi lenders zero lend is shutting down after three years.
Speaker 1: Their total value locked collapse ninety eight percent to six
Speaker 1: point six million dollars. They got hacked, the chains they
Speaker 1: launched on went quiet, and the lending margins couldn't sustain it.
Speaker 1: This isn't a slow bleed. This is a protocol getting unplugged.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. AVE is sitting at twenty six
Speaker 1: billion users in total value locked. The lesson isn't that
Speaker 1: DeFi lending is broken. It's that DeFi has winner take
Speaker 1: most dynamics. Being the fifth best lending protocol on the
Speaker 1: third best chain is a death sentence. And finally, Polygon
Speaker 1: just flipped ethereum in daily transaction fees. Sounds like a
Speaker 1: layer two victory lap, right, But the driver is prediction markets,
Speaker 1: not DeFi or NFTs. That's a narrow use case. Generating
Speaker 1: outsized activity. Meanwhile, Steak in Shake, Yes, the burger chain
Speaker 1: says bitcoin payments boosted same store sales dramatically over nine months.
Speaker 1: They're even funneling crypto receipts into a corporate bitcoin reserve
Speaker 1: and using it for employee bonuses. A fast food chain
Speaker 1: running a bitcoin treasury stratch quick break. Here's a message
Speaker 1: from our sponsor. All right, we're back now, let's continue
Speaker 1: strategy in twenty twenty six. The adoption isn't coming from
Speaker 1: where the VC is expected. It's coming from gamblers and cheeseburgers.
Speaker 1: Let me be straight with you about what could go wrong. First,
Speaker 1: long term holder distribution is accelerating when the diamond hands
Speaker 1: start letting go, the bid underneath thins fast. If this
Speaker 1: continues for another week, sixty five thousand becomes a trapdoor,
Speaker 1: not a floor. Second, Bitcoin just recoupled with tech stocks
Speaker 1: right as the risk off trade deepens. If you're holding
Speaker 1: bitcoin as a hedge against equity volatility, that thesis is
Speaker 1: currently broken. Any further, NASDAC weakness pulls crypto down with it.
Speaker 1: And Third, every major narrative except prediction markets is down
Speaker 1: double digits on the week when there's nowhere for capital
Speaker 1: to rotate within crypto. It leaves crypto entirely stable. Coin
Speaker 1: supply is at three hundred billion dollars, which is the
Speaker 1: one bright spot, but that money is sitting, not deploying.
Speaker 1: Watch for the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Asset Market Structure
Speaker 1: votes sometime this week. A vote on market structure legislation
Speaker 1: could reset the regulatory narrative for the entire sector. Also,
Speaker 1: keep an eye on Glass Nodes Bitcoin market pulse for
Speaker 1: week nine coming around February twenty third, after last week
Speaker 1: showed bitcoin stalling at seventy thousand with overhead supply. The
Speaker 1: next pulse will confirm whether long term holder distribution is
Speaker 1: accelerating or stabilizing. If you got value from this episode,
Speaker 1: do me a favor. Hit subscribe so you don't miss
Speaker 1: tomorrow's market moves. And if you know someone who's trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of crypto, send them this episode seriously,
Speaker 1: just text it to them right now. I'm Alex. Remember
Speaker 1: this isn't investment advice, just educational content. See you tomorrow,