Bitcoin Soars to Break $85,000 Barrier, Then Retraces, Now Trading at $84,280

On March 17th, Lazard's Chief Market Strategist Temple expressed that due to inflation risks, Lazard still anticipates that the Fed will not cut interest rates until 2025. He pointed out that Lazard's perspective is notably different from the market consensus as the market generally assumes that there could be three rate cuts this year. Temple stated, "My viewpoint is in conflict with the consensus because I expect that by 2025, U.S. tariffs will widen in scope and scale, thereby pushing up inflation." He further explained that a re-acceleration of inflation does not necessarily result in interest rate hikes. However, increasing price pressures may prevent the Fed from loosening policy in the face of rising unemployment. (FXStreet)

On March 17th, as per the monitoring of OnchainDataNerd, a whale address beginning with 0x02a amassed 500,000 AUCTION tokens during the previous week at an average price of $18.57. Currently, it is indicating an unrealized gain of approximately $6.2 million.

On March 17th, the three major U.S. stock indexes reversed and are currently up by more than 0.3%. Intel (INTC.O) has seen its gain expand to 5%. Coinbase is up by 1.49%, MARA Holdings is up by 0.95%, Riot Platforms has narrowed its decline to 0.26%, and Strategy has narrowed its decline to 1.19%.

On March 17th, Robinhood made an announcement regarding the launch of the Prediction Markets Hub service. This service involves the introduction of prediction market contracts across the United States via KalshiEX LLC and is expected to be accessible to all eligible customers in the coming days.

March 17th, "SOL Edition of MicroStrategy" Sol Strategies declared that it has accomplished the acquisition of three validators, namely the Laine validator and stakewiz.com. The combination of the Laine validator network with Stakewiz.com notably enhances Sol Strategies' standing as a leading institutional staking solutions provider within the Solana ecosystem. As of March 15, 2025, Sol Strategies has raised its total staked SOL in validator operations from 1,653,752 SOL on March 3, 2025, to 3,351,617 SOL. Since that time, the total SOL staked has witnessed an approximate increase of 102%. According to market data, the stock price of Sol Strategies Inc. has rocketed by over 20% today.

March 17th: In the United States, retail sales in February witnessed a monthly increase; however, it fell short of expectations. The January sales decline was revised from 0.9% to 1.2% on a month-on-month basis. The report indicates that among 13 categories, only 5 categories experienced an increase in sales in February compared to January. These categories include non-store retailers (representing e-commerce), general merchandise, health and personal care, food and beverages, and building materials. These types of categories are generally essential goods rather than non-essential ones. Hence, the growth in these areas implies that consumers were cautious with their spending last month. Retailers have issued warnings that due to cold weather, tax refund delays, and the increasing uncertainty of consumers regarding the economy, February began on a weak note. Since January of this year, consumer confidence has been on a downward trend for three consecutive months as Americans strive to