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

• One crypto CEO’s most interesting market outlook tidbits.    

• US states continue to jockey for position in the BTC reserve race.

Crypto narratives as await next market move 

Bitcoin’s price is roughly flat week over week as investors eye the next potential crypto market mover.

As Wintermute OTC trader Jake O. put it: “After two consecutive weekends of heightened volatility, the past few sessions have been noticeably slow, with spot ranges tightening.” 

“This slowdown coincides with a lack of fresh crypto-specific narratives, as traders reassess positioning after last week's liquidation event,” he added.

You want narratives?

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz shared some views — albeit higher-level and less focused on day-to-day prices — for listeners of his panel at the Ondo Summit last week. You might recall I shared the regulation/legislation takeaways from that event.

Novogratz’s first prediction came when he introduced his company, which hopes to go public.

“We’ve been waiting 4.5 years, there’s a new SEC and so I think you’re going to see a whole host of companies — come May or June — listing on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq.”

He then shared scenes from the VP JD Vance’s ball last month (separate from the Crypto Ball Casey attended). Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg were there, he said, along with what Novogratz estimated to be 20 crypto CEOs.

This big representation felt bullish, he noted. Even if, in Novogratz’s words, “the Trump coin didn’t help that spirit.”  

“I think [bitcoin will] be on the government’s balance sheet in six months,” he said, noting BTC has “carved out a lane” as a store of value. 

On that note, the Galaxy CEO casually claimed to have had lunch with the head of one of the largest sovereign wealth funds two weeks after the election. You know, as really rich executives do.

Essentially if the US is to buy bitcoin (even at the state-level, which we’ll discuss later), many of these funds want in too.

“He was cutting his first $500 million check to dip his toe in,” Novogratz said.

Also on that panel was Pantera Capital founder Dan Morehead, who chimed in to address those talking of a crypto bubble. 

“How can you have a bubble that nobody owns?” he said. “The median holding of an institutional investor in blockchain is zero.”

Just imagine the impact of a tiny fraction of the $500 trillion of global assets migrating to crypto, Morehead posed. Given his recent convos with institutions that have changed their tune, he expects that to occur this year. 

After bitcoin’s ascent to $109,000, it has obviously retreated — hovering around $97,650 at 2:15 pm ET Monday. Could it move lower to, say, $80,000?

Sure, Novogratz said. 

“That doesn’t invalidate this space at all,” he added. “Quite frankly that’s the buying opportunity.”

— Ben Strack

Six weeks out from DAS NYC, and the stakes have never been higher.

How are fund managers positioning? What’s the real institutional play on ETFs, onchain finance, and global markets?

At DAS NYC, you’ll hear directly from the firms building their strategies around this:

• Franklin Templeton on tokenization and the next phase of asset management.

• Morgan Stanley Investment Management on how institutions are positioning in emerging markets.

• Galaxy Digital on the investment landscape and how smart money is allocating.

If you’re coming, bring your team. Group passes are 25% off for 10+ people — but only until Feb. 14. Smaller groups (4-9) still save 15%.

📅 March 18-20 | NYC

The capital that moved into crypto investment products from Feb. 3-7, according to CoinShares data — marking the fifth consecutive week of positive net flows.

In a rare twist, ether products led bitcoin products in this category, with $793 million to $407 million, respectively. This was due to “buying on weakness,” CoinShares’ James Butterfill wrote, after ETH plummeted to ~$2,100.

It was a few weeks back I wrote about new proposed bills in Texas and Oklahoma focused on crypto investments. They joined plenty of states with similar plans — i.e. Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and others. 

More recently, Caylin Young, a delegate in Maryland’s state legislature, proposed establishing a bitcoin reserve fund. There appears to be a hearing on this slated for March 6.

The bill would allow the state treasurer to invest funds obtained through enforcing certain gambling violations toward the crypto asset, according to a proposal synopsis. 

In Kentucky, House Bill 376 was introduced to “authorize the State Investment Commission to make investments in certain digital assets and bullion.” 

The bill does not mention BTC specifically. But it does note stablecoins (with appropriate US approval) and digital assets (ex stablecoins) with a market cap exceeding $750 billion over the previous calendar year.

That market cap figure is used in Iowa’s House File 246, too — legislation also introduced last week.

This comes after a proposal in Utah allowing the state to allocate up to 5% of certain public funds to crypto moved on to the state senate. Contrarily, North Dakota’s House rejected a similar plan.  

ProChain Capital’s David Tawil wrote in a Sunday email that the strategic bitcoin reserve race “is on and it is real.”

“The largest investors in the world (municipalities, pension funds and nation-states) are going [to] compete to accumulate bitcoin as a digital gold, to serve as a safe haven reserve asset and, in the case of nations, to combat deflation in their own currencies,” he wrote.

Though specifics around the federal government’s possible BTC-buying plans remain unknown for now, there’ll be plenty to watch at the state-level.

— Ben Strack

• Donald Trump was expected to announce 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports today. As Unity Wallet’s James Toledano noted: “Trump’s tariffs create uncertainty in global trade, which can trigger risk-off behavior among investors. This leads to short-term selloffs in both equities and crypto, as traders seek to reduce exposure to volatile assets.”

• Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) bought 7,633 BTC between Feb. 3 and Feb. 9 for $742 million. The company now holds 478,740 BTC, which it acquired for $31.1 billion.

• You can join writers of 0xResearch and Blockworks Research analysts in an X Space tomorrow at 12 pm ET to get the inside scoop on Berachain and more.