Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Alex and this is the Token Metrics Daily
Speaker 1: Pulse for February fifteenth. We've got a lot to unpack today.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin's clawing back to seventy thousand after getting absolutely hammered
Speaker 1: earlier this week. But here's the thing. Wall Street and
Speaker 1: offshore traders are reading this market completely differently. One of
Speaker 1: them's about to get punished. Let's figure out which one.
Speaker 1: So Bitcoin bounced back to around seventy thousand after that
Speaker 1: brutal's eight point seven billion dollar wipeout we saw earlier
Speaker 1: in the week. The Fear and Greed Index is screaming
Speaker 1: extreme fear, which normally signals a contrarian buy. But here's
Speaker 1: where it gets interesting. We're down forty five percent from
Speaker 1: the October peak, and the data suggests we might not
Speaker 1: have hit bottom yet. The real story, though, Wall Street's
Speaker 1: still buying bitcoin futures on the CME, while offshore traders
Speaker 1: on darribit are pulling back hard. That's a massive divergence,
Speaker 1: and historically, when these two regional markets price things this differently,
Speaker 1: one side gets absolutely destroyed. Quick snapshot. Bitcoins sitting at
Speaker 1: seventy two hundred and twenty nine, basically flat on the day.
Speaker 1: Ethereum's down about one point eight percent at twenty sixty
Speaker 1: Solana's actually up two point three percent at eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: Total market cap is around two point forty eight trillion,
Speaker 1: and bitcoin dominance just ticked up to fifty six point
Speaker 1: six percent, which tells you alts are bleeding harder than
Speaker 1: the major's fear and greed is pinned to extreme fear.
Speaker 1: That's the environment we're working with. All right, Let's dig
Speaker 1: into what actually matters today. First up, the CME dearrobit
Speaker 1: basis split Wall Street's pricing and optimism on the back
Speaker 1: of that cooling inflation print. We got dearrabit, which is
Speaker 1: where offshore and retail traders hang out, is still licking
Speaker 1: wounds from the eight point seven billion dollar liquidation cascade Galaxies.
Speaker 1: Steve Kurtz called it a great convergence of infrastructure growth
Speaker 1: and institutional adoption. That's a nice way of saying the
Speaker 1: big money sees a buying opportunity where retail sees a
Speaker 1: bear market. Here's the watch. If the CME basis stays
Speaker 1: elevated above deribits for five or more trading days, institutional
Speaker 1: conviction is real and we probably found the floor. If
Speaker 1: it compresses back toward dererabit within forty eight hours, Wall
Speaker 1: Street just blinked and the next leg down gets ugly. Second,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's X is launching in app crypto and stock
Speaker 1: trading within a couple weeks via something called smart cash tags.
Speaker 1: Users will see live ticker data in their timeline and
Speaker 1: execute trades without leaving the app. Now. X has been
Speaker 1: promising payments since Musk bought the thing, but this time
Speaker 1: there's actual specifics. A named feature, a named exec a
Speaker 1: named timeline. That's three more details than we usually get.
Speaker 1: If this actually ships, you're putting a crypto by button
Speaker 1: in front of hundreds of millions of users who currently
Speaker 1: have zero exchange accounts. That's not a trading platform. That's
Speaker 1: a distribution weapon. Robinhood should be nervous. Coinbase should be terrified.
Speaker 1: The counter argument X's track record on shipping product is
Speaker 1: let's call it aspirational, and regulatory approvals for in app
Speaker 1: trading across fifty states aren't exactly a weekend project. Third
Speaker 1: Congress is getting serious about the Trump crypto deals. Senators
Speaker 1: Warren and Kim are demanding a CFIUS review of the
Speaker 1: UAES reported five hundred million dollar steak in World Liberty Financial.
Speaker 1: That's the Trump linked crypto venture. Two chambers of Congress
Speaker 1: are now poking at the same deal. That's not a
Speaker 1: phishing expedition. That's a core ordinated squeeze. CFEIS reviews can
Speaker 1: block or unwind foreign investments on national security grounds. A
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollar stake from a sovereign adjacent UAE
Speaker 1: entity in a firm tied to a sitting president's family.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what CFEIS was designed to scrutinize. Meanwhile, Trump
Speaker 1: Media just filed for truth Social branded Bitcoin Ethereum and
Speaker 1: chronos ETFs. The Trump family is going all in on
Speaker 1: crypto products at the exact moment Congress is asking whether
Speaker 1: their crypto deals have foreign entanglements. The political risk here
Speaker 1: isn't theoretical. It's on the congressional calendar. Fourth, Grayscale filed
Speaker 1: to convert its closed end a of a trust into
Speaker 1: a full ETF listing on NYSE ARCA. AVV three currently
Speaker 1: holds twenty seven point one billion dollars in total value locked,
Speaker 1: making it the largest DeFi lending prote call. Gray Scale
Speaker 1: is running the GBTC playbook on DEFE tokens now convert
Speaker 1: the trust list the ETF let trad FI buy the
Speaker 1: thing they can't custody themselves. AVE is an interesting pick
Speaker 1: because it's one of the few DEFHI tokens with actual
Speaker 1: revenue and a protocol that institutions can point to and say,
Speaker 1: this is a business. Twenty seven point one billion in
Speaker 1: total value. Locked isn't a meme. It's bigger than most
Speaker 1: regional banks loan books. The timing matters too. Treasury Secretary
Speaker 1: Besant just said the Clarity Act passing would comfort markets
Speaker 1: if DeFi tokens get regulatory clarity and AVE, ETF goes
Speaker 1: from niche product to Gateway drug for institutional DeFi exposure.
Speaker 1: Last one, the Ethereum Foundation announced co executive director Tomash
Speaker 1: Stanchak is stepping down at the end of February. Kastian
Speaker 1: Alway takes over alongside Shiaowei Wang. The EF has now
Speaker 1: cycled through leadership faster than most startups cycle through office snacks.
Speaker 1: The real story isn't who's in the chair, It's that
Speaker 1: Ethereum is down one point seventy seven percent today at
Speaker 1: twenty sixty and the Foundation keeps reshuffling leadership while the
Speaker 1: community debates whether Ethereum even has a coherent strategy. With
Speaker 1: Ethereum to Bitcoin grinding lower and layer twos eating base
Speaker 1: layer activity, the new leadership needs to ship clarity, not
Speaker 1: just org charts. Three risks you need to watch. First,
Speaker 1: extreme fear is comfortable. The Fear and Greed index is
Speaker 1: pinned to extreme fear, which usually signals a contrarian buy.
Speaker 1: But bitcoins down forty five percent from its October peak
Speaker 1: and the data suggests we haven't hit the ultimate bear
Speaker 1: market bottom yet, extreme fear can get more extreme. Second,
Speaker 1: the CME deribit basis divergence. Wall Street and Offshore are
Speaker 1: pricing two different realities. When regional basis spreads diverge this much,
Speaker 1: the convergence trade can be violent. If Offshore is right,
Speaker 1: the CME longs get liquidated. If Wall Street is right,
Speaker 1: the deribit shorts get squeezed. Either way, volatility is coming. Third,
Speaker 1: Kevin Walsh's FED chair nomination. Polymarket gives sixty two percent
Speaker 1: odds worsh gets formally nominated as FED chair by month end.
Speaker 1: Warsh is a known hawk. A nomination could reprice rate expectations.
Speaker 1: Across every risk asset. Crypto included within hours. Three things
Speaker 1: to watch this week. X smart cash tags could launch
Speaker 1: late February or early March. If Musk's teamships in app
Speaker 1: Crypto trading to X's user base, it's the largest new
Speaker 1: distribution channel for crypto since Robinhood. Even a soft launch
Speaker 1: moves sentiment. The Clarity Act could see legislative progress. Treasury
Speaker 1: Secretary Besen said passing it would comfort markets, and any
Speaker 1: concrete movement this week could flip sentiment from extreme fear
Speaker 1: to cautious optimism. And Kevin Worsh's FED chair nomination decision
Speaker 1: sixty two percent polymarket odds of a formal nomination by
Speaker 1: February twenty eighth. A hawkish FED chair pick would pressure
Speaker 1: rate cut expectations and risk assets broadly. That's what's moving
Speaker 1: the market today. 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,