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Crypto Daybook Americas: Recession Concerns Stifle BTC Recovery Prospects, Memecoins Buzz

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btcadmin
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By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) has found some stability around its 200-day average at about $84,000 after dipping below $77,000 early last week. The broader market recovery was led by memecoins, layer-2 tokens and gaming tokens.

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However, maintaining a sustained uptick could still be a challenge, especially since President Donald Trump’s administration appears to have a higher tolerance for market instability than many expected. Just two months ago, when Trump took office, the crypto market was buzzing with optimism that any turbulence created by tariffs would lead to prompt policy support from the White House.

That optimism seems to have been misplaced. Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said corrections are healthy and normal, a hint that the anticipated “Trump put” might take longer to materialize than traders hoped.

More importantly, on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Bessent did not rule out the possibility of a recession. This starkly contrasts with government officials’ typical attitude of emphasizing “glass half full” perspective when the going gets tough.

It could mean Trump isn’t ready to back down from his tariff fight just yet, keeping risk assets feeling uneasy. If stock prices continue to fall, it’s hard to imagine bitcoin staying resilient for long, especially given the lack of uplifting narratives in the crypto market.

“It’s just a guess, but I doubt Trump will reverse course on tariffs and his drive to bring U.S. manufacturing back at these price levels,” Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at Amberdata, shared in an email. “I can’t picture a scenario where risk assets crash and crypto remains unaffected, or where the VIX increases and crypto’s implied volatility doesn’t follow suit.”

Plus, sentiment is deteriorating on Main Street, which could add to the recent risk aversion in both the crypto and traditional markets. A chart shared on X by Otavio Costa, a macro strategist at Crescat’s Capital, highlights a record number of U.S. consumers expecting conditions to worsen over the next year (see Chart of the Day, below).

The focus on macro means traders will follow Wednesday’s Fed meeting for cues on the central bank’s readiness to deploy stimulus. The bar is low after Chairman Powell said the bank is in a wait-and-watch mode to assess the impact of Trump’s policies before cutting rates.

In other news, Aave Labs’s Founder, Stani Kulechov, confirmed that the Aave decentralized autonomous organization had reached a clear consensus against introducing a new token for Horizon, an Aave initiative to integrate real-world assets into decentralized finance.

Trump is reportedly going to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the Ukraine war. Digital asset prime broker FalconX said it had completed the “first-ever” block trade in CME’s SOL futures with StoneX as counterparty. Stay alert!

What to Watch

  • Crypto:
  • Macro
    • March 17, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases February sales data.
      • Retail Sales MoM Est. 0.7% vs. Prev. -0.9%
      • Retail Sales YoY Prev. 4.2%
    • March 18, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases February consumer price index (CPI) data.
      • Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.4%
      • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.1%
      • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 0.1%
      • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.1% vs. Prev. 1.9%
    • March 18, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases February residential construction data.
      • Housing Starts Est. 1.375M vs. Prev. 1.366M
    • March 18, 11:00 p.m.: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) releases its Statement on Monetary Policy.
      • Interest Rate Decision Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. 0.5%
    • March 19, 6:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases (final) February eurozone consumer price index (CPI) data.
      • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.7%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.5% vs. Prev. -0.3%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 2.5%
    • March 19, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Reserve announces its interest rate decision. The FOMC press conference is livestreamed 30 minutes later.
      • Fed Funds Interest Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
    • March 19, 5:30 p.m.: The Central Bank of Brazil announces its interest rate decision.
      • Selic Rate Est. 14.25% vs. Prev. 13.25%
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
    • March 27: KULR Technology Group (KULR), post-market
    • March 28: Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY), pre-market

Token Events

  • Governance votes & calls
    • Aave DAO is discussing the launch of Horizon, a licensed instance of the Aave Protocol to allow institutions to “access permissionless stablecoin liquidity while meeting issuer requirements.”
    • Balancer DAO is discussing the deployment of Balancer V3 on OP Mainnet.
    • March 17, 10 a.m.: Jito to hold a Delegate’s Call to discuss JIP-15, JIP-16, and its Tokenomics Report.
    • March 18, 6 a.m.: Toncoin (TON) to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on its ecosystem expansion.
    • March 18, 8 a.m.: Binanceto host an AMA session with Binance’s VP of Product Jeff Li and Binance Angel Victor Balaban.
  • Unlocks
    • March 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of its circulating supply worth $79.80 million.
    • March 18: Mantra (OM) to unlock 0.51% of its circulating supply worth $34.1 million.
    • March 21: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.39% of circulating supply worth $14.04 million.
    • March 23: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply worth $96.8’0 million.
    • March 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.93% of its circulating supply worth $27.31 million.
  • Token Listings
    • March 18: Jupiter (JUP) to be listed on Arkham.
    • March 18: Paws (PAWS) to be listed on Bybit.
    • March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

  • BNB Chain trading volumes flipped those of Ethereum and Solana over weekend.
  • Decentralized exchanges (DEX) built on BNB Chain racked up over $1.7 billion in trading volume in each of the past three days as newer memecoins created trading opportunities for traders.
  • The PancakeSwap DEX processed over $1.2 billion of volume in the past 24 hours, helping to boost CAKE token prices by 30%.
  • The Mubarak (MUBARAK) memecoin emerged as the token gaining the most attention on X, gaining listings on platforms like Binance Alpha and exchanges such as Bitget on Monday.
  • It was introduced through the BNB Chain-based Four Meme launchpad on March 13, with an initial market cap as low as $6,000. That soared past $100 million on Sunday. The coin has no inherent utility beyond its meme-driven appeal, typical of many tokens in this category, relying instead on community engagement and speculative trading.
  • Data from DEXTools shows brisk token issuance activity on BNB Chain as of European morning hours Monday, although most new launches fail to break a $10,000 market capitalization or fall to zero as their creators pull liquidity from trading pools.
  • Meanwhile, BNB Chain’s BNB has gained 5% in the past 24 hours amid the renewed demand, beating a broader market fall.

Derivatives Positioning

  • The barely positive BTC and ETH perpetual funding rates signal caution and cast doubt on the price recovery. Several altcoins like XRP, ADA, SOL, DOGE, LINK and TRX are seeing negative rates, indicating a bias for shorts.
  • BTC, ETH CME futures basis remains low near 5%.
  • Short and near-dated BTC and ETH puts continue to be pricier than calls.
  • Top block flows in BTC options on Deribit featured OTM call selling and put buying.

Market Movements:

  • BTC is down 0.9% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $83,468.34 (24hrs: -0.23%)
  • ETH is down 0.67% at $1,910.26 (24hrs: +0.18%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is down 0.76% at 2,625.62 (24hrs: -0.33%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 3 bps at 2.96%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0075% (8.2% annualized) on Binance
  • DXY is down 0.14% at 103.57
  • Gold is unchanged at $2,996.63/oz
  • Silver is up 0.18% at $33.84/oz
  • Nikkei 225 closed +0.93% at 37,396.52
  • Hang Seng closed +0.77% at 24,145.57
  • FTSE is up 0.21% at 8,650.39
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.22% at 5,415.98
  • DJIA closed on Friday +1.65% at 41,488.19
  • S&P 500 closed +2.13% at 5,638.94
  • Nasdaq closed +2.61% at 17,754.09
  • S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.45% at 24,553.40
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed +3.83% at 2,432.92
  • U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 3 bps at 4.29%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.35% at 5,672.50
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.31% at 19,858.50
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.39% at 41,685.00

Bitcoin Stats:

  • BTC Dominance: 61.60 (-0.25%)
  • Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02289 (0.18%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 815 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): $47.38
  • Total Fees: 5.22 BTC / $436,428
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 149,470 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 27.6 oz
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 7.84%

Technical Analysis

BTC/gold ratio. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

  • The bitcoin-gold ratio has collapsed to levels last seen in early November. The slide has penetrated the ratio’s March 2024 high, flipping it into a resistance level.
  • The 50-day SMA has peaked and is also trending south, looking to move below the 200-day SMA in a so-called death cross. That would signal a prolonged gold outperformance relative to bitcoin.

Crypto Equities

  • Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $297.49 (+13%), down 1.91% at $291.80 in pre-market
  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $183.12 (+3.17%), down 0.63% at $181.97
  • Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.98 (+8.18%)
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.18 (+8.39%), down 0.68% at $13.09
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.82 (+6.98%), down 0.77% at $7.76
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.81 (+1.73%), down 1.14% at $8.71
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.97 (+3.64%), down 1.25% at $7.87
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $15.30 (+5.01%)
  • Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.35 (+5.3%), down 0.79% at $34.08
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.05 (+7.55%), down 7.27% at $26.01

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

  • Daily net flow: -$59.2 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $35.29 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~ 1,118 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flow: -$46.9 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $2.53 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~ 3.521 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Expected business conditions (University of Michigan, Haver Analytics, Apollo Chief Economist)

  • The share of U.S. consumers expecting business conditions to worsen in the months ahead has hit a record high.
  • The development points to a tough time for risk and growth-sensitive assets.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether