Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Silver linings around BTC’s plummet and broader market turbulence.

• We have new stablecoin bills on the horizon, but all issuers may not be happy. 

• Trump’s tariff plans continue to keep markets on their toes.

A glass-half-full look at the market

Bitcoin sits more than 20% off the all-time high it hit last month. And yes, US bitcoin ETFs saw a record outflow day yesterday. 

There’s been plenty of red elsewhere too, as Casey pointed out in recent stock market coverage.

But that doesn’t mean a rebound isn’t coming, right? Though BTC had dropped further Wednesday ($84,200 at 2 pm ET), the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were each basically flat. 

“Bull markets peak amid excessive leverage, retail euphoria and falling BTC
dominance — not compressed funding rates,” 21Shares crypto research strategist Matt Mena said in a report. 

“Liquidations reset overleveraged positions, creating healthier uptrends as traders
re-enter post-shakeout,” he added.

The memecoin token frenzy (i.e. $TRUMP) suggests mid-cycle speculation, aligning with 2020-2021 patterns, Mena noted. Blockworks’ Katherine Ross wrote this morning that recent token launches have indeed “contributed to the larger exhaustion.”

Bitwise research head Ryan Rasmussen countered with this:

The M2 money supply has been growing since mid-January and quantitative tightening could soon reach “a natural end,” Mena wrote in his report.

One more thing the 21Shares exec points out: The Pi Cycle Top Indicator — tracking bitcoin's 111-day simple moving average against a 2x multiple of the 350-day SMA — hasn't yet signaled a market peak.

LMAX Group’s Joel Kruger called out traditional markets, where risk appetite has cooled off given global trade tension and a more hawkish outlook from the Fed.

“We believe correlations between bitcoin and traditional risk assets can be misleading, with bitcoin easily capable of generating sizable demand as an attractive portfolio diversification asset given properties that align more with that of a store of value,” he argued. 

There’s “formidable support” for BTC in the $70,000-$75,000 zone. That, Kruger believes, “should serve as an attractive higher low ahead of the next major upside extension and bullish continuation to a fresh record high beyond $110,000.”

Beyond price, YouHodler markets chief Ruslan Lienkha spoke to how last week’s Bybit hack could affect institutional confidence in centralized exchanges.  

It won’t have a major impact, he thinks, as security breaches more significantly affect retail traders who rely heavily on CEXs for trading and asset storage.

“Institutions typically adhere to strict treasury management rules and allocate only the necessary liquidity to CEXs for routine transactions,” he said in an email. “Large-scale institutional trades are often conducted through OTC markets, while long-term holdings are kept in secure, self-custodied solutions.”

And in case you missed it, the SEC closed its multi-year investigation into Uniswap Labs. It won’t pursue any enforcement action, the company said.

That follows the securities regulator telling Coinbase last week it would drop its case against the crypto exchange (still to be finalized). Robinhood and OpenSea also revealed this week the SEC was ending probes into the companies.

So not all things are on the up and up. But there are places to hang your hat.

We’ll see what we’re saying after today’s Nvidia earnings, tomorrow’s initial jobless claims and the Friday PCE data drop.

— Ben Strack

DAS NYC is approaching.

VIP passes? Gone. The agenda? Live. The conversations shaping this market are happening — make sure you’re in the room.

Join some of the industry's top leaders: 

• Stani Kulechov (Avara) – The DeFi architect shaping the next wave of onchain finance.

• Robert Leshner (Superstate) – Tokenized assets aren’t theoretical — they’re here.

• Alex Thorn (Galaxy Digital) – The research that’s setting institutional strategies.

Less than 30 days to go.

📅 March 18-20 | NYC

The capital that flowed out of US spot bitcoin ETFs on Tuesday, Farside Investors data shows.

It was the largest-ever net outflow day for these products, with the previous high being $672 million on Dec. 19.

For years I’ve heard that stablecoins are going to be one of the first facets of crypto to become regulated. 

We’ve seen a few stablecoin bills get introduced and marked up, but so far nothing has been passed. With Trump 2.0 and a Republican majority on the Hill, this may be the year we start to see some movement. 

But when it comes to specifics, the industry isn’t on the same page. 

Some claim the latest drafts of stablecoin legislation prohibit non-US issuers from purchasing Treasurys. I wasn’t able to confirm this, and no draft I’ve seen has this language, but that doesn't mean there aren’t lobbyists pushing this approach on Capitol Hill. 

It’s no surprise that Circle (and Coinbase, according to people familiar) are pushing for a more US-forward approach to stablecoin legislation. USDC is the world’s second-largest stablecoin, so giving foreign issuers like Tether more hoops to jump through would be advantageous for Circle. 

Republican Senators Tim Scott, Bill Hagerty and Cynthia Lummis earlier this month partnered with Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand on the GENIUS Act. It’s a stablecoin bill that, among other things, establishes reserve and liquidity requirements for payment stablecoin issuers. 

Over in the House, Republicans French Hill and Bryan Steil released a discussion draft for the STABLE Act, which also stipulates that issuers must maintain 1:1 reserves and high liquidity. 

No markups have been scheduled so far this session, but I’ve been told we could start to see movement as soon as next month. We’ll be curious to see which witnesses are called to testify.

— Casey Wagner

President Trump yesterday threw markets another tariff-related curveball.

Trump ordered a probe into placing levies on copper imports, a move he hopes will help rebuild domestic metal production. 

Copper is a key material for electric vehicles, military infrastructure and consumer electronics, Trump said in his Tuesday executive order. 

Foreign dominance of copper exports “coupled with global overcapacity and a single producer's control of world supply chains, poses a direct threat to United States national security and economic stability,” the order read. 

The move once again pushed investors into a risk-off mindset, helping to stabilize gold prices and increase interest in other safe haven assets. Copper futures were also on the rise, with those traded on the Comex gaining as much as 5% today. 

Trump issued the order using Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the same law he used back in 2017 to slap 25% tariffs on aluminum and steel imports. 

To further complicate things, Trump this afternoon apparently gave two different dates for when tariffs against Canada and Mexico will begin, first saying March 4 and later saying April 2, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

As I’ve said before, this market is just waiting for the other tariff shoe to drop — and the changing timeline isn’t helping calm the waters in the meantime.

— Casey Wagner

• Ondo Finance’s Short-Term US Government Treasuries Fund is set to be the first tokenized real-world asset integrated into the Mastercard Multi-Token Network — designed to connect financial institutions with businesses to improve cross-border payments. Ondo chief strategy officer Ian De Bode is set to speak on a panel Ben is moderating at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in New York next month.  

• Bybit CEO Ben Zhou shared a hack forensics report labeling the root cause of last week’s attack as “malicious code originating from Safe{Wallet}’s infrastructure.” The report adds: “No indication of compromise was identified within Bybit’s infrastructure.” 

• ProShares said Wednesday that its affiliate, ProFunds, launched the first US mutual fund that targets the performance of ether.