Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

On February 26, South Korean media outlet News1 reported that industry sources have revealed stablecoin issuer Tether recently posted job openings targeting Korean employees, including roles for a PR manager, blockchain investigator, and government relations officer. Tether first entered the Korean market last year by hiring a Korean market representative, but after that representative departed, the firm decided to significantly expand its local team. Separately, another virtual asset industry insider noted: “Since Circle’s CEO visited South Korea in August 2023, Circle has been actively conducting lending business in the country.” This activity appears to align with South Korea’s regulatory requirements for overseas stablecoin issuers. The upcoming Digital Assets Basic Law (Phase 2 Virtual Assets Act) is expected to include provisions mandating that overseas stablecoin issuers establish a local branch to distribute their tokens in the domestic market. As a result, even maj

On February 26, cryptocurrency market analyst Axel shared a report on social media, citing CryptoQuant data that Bitcoin’s “MVRV Z-Score” currently sits at -2.28—falling below the bear market bottoms of 2018 (-1.6) and 2022 (-1.4) to enter a “strong bear” zone. The MVRV Z-Score measures the standardized deviation of Bitcoin’s market value from its realized value; a negative reading means the market price is below the on-chain “fair value.” Axel attributed this anomaly to the scale of realized value in the ETF era: massive institutional capital inflows have lifted the cost basis, making the Z-Score more sensitive to price swings. A rebound of the Z-Score above -1.5, paired with Bitcoin holding above $65,000, would be the first technical confirmation signal to exit the pressure zone. However, the NUPL indicator—used to gauge market sentiment—currently stands at 0.197, still in the “hope” zone and far from the “surrender zone” seen at historical cycle bottoms. During true surrend

Trader pepe1stbuyer.eth, who made over $1.4M(6,965x) on $PEPE, spent 8.92 $ETH($16.5K) to buy 2.13M $EDEL recently. pepe1stbuyer.eth previously bought $PEPE when its market cap was under $16K, spending only $201 to buy 5.4T $PEPE — and later made over $1.4M.

Date: February 26 Perpetual DEX (Perp DEX) Metrics Update (DefiLlama Data) Mainstream Perp DEXs posted **sharp gains** in both 24-hour trading volume and Total Value Locked (TVL) over the past day. Aster saw a larger surge and now ranks 2nd by trading volume, while Hyperliquid’s volume topped $71.0 billion. Hyperliquid’s open interest has also edged up slightly over the past four days. Below is the current ranking of major Perp DEXs by 24-hour trading volume: 1. **Hyperliquid** - 24h Volume: ~$71.0b - TVL: ~$42.3b - Open Interest: ~$57.5b - Link: [Hyperliquid](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/NTOD) 2. **Aster** - 24h Volume: ~$38.2b - TVL: ~$10.6b - Open Interest: ~$18.9b - Link: [Aster](https://www.asterdex.com/en-US/referral/aboter) 3. **Lighter** - 24h Volume: ~$37.7b - TVL: ~$8.8b - Open Interest: ~$7.77b - Link: [Lighter](https://app.lighter.xyz/?referral=70045843) 4. **EdgeX** - 24h Volume: ~$35.

February 26 — As Bitcoin briefly topped $69,000 today, funding rates across major centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) exchanges signal fading bearish sentiment in the market, with specific rates shown in the attached chart. BlockBeats Note: Funding rates are set by crypto exchanges to align perpetual contract prices with underlying asset values. This is a fund exchange mechanism between long and short traders—exchanges do not charge this fee. It adjusts the cost or profit of traders holding contracts to keep contract prices close to the underlying asset’s price. A 0.01% funding rate is the baseline. Rates above 0.01% indicate a broadly bullish market, while rates below 0.005% signal a broadly bearish market.

February 26th: Bernstein has raised its price target for Nvidia (NVDA.O) to $300 from $275, per market reports.