U.S. CPI: +2.9% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +2.9%); U.S. CORE CPI: +3.2% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.3%)

**February 23 – U.S. Macro Update: Sticky Inflation, Extended High Rates Take Center Stage** ### Key Data & Events This Week - **Tuesday 11:00 PM ET**: U.S. December monthly wholesale sales; February Conference Board U.S. Consumer Confidence Index; Richmond Fed February Manufacturing Index - **Wednesday After-Hours**: Nvidia earnings release - **Thursday 9:30 PM ET**: U.S. initial jobless claims (Feb 21 week) - **Friday 10:45 PM ET**: U.S. February Chicago PMI ### Economic Data Recap U.S. Q4 2025 GDP growth missed expectations, but core GDP posted a 2.4% year-over-year gain—signaling ongoing economic resilience. December core PCE rose 0.4% month-over-month (biggest jump in nearly a year) and hit 3% year-over-year, while supercore PCE stood at 3.3%—reinforcing sticky inflation signals. ### Rate Market Shift Traders have largely scrapped expectations for first-half 2025 rate cuts. LSEG data shows markets now fully price in **two 25-basis-point cuts in 2026**, with

On February 23, on-chain analyst Ai Auntie (@ai_9684xtpa) noted that an address holding ETH for over two years panic-sold 3,313 ETH 15 minutes prior—narrowing its profit to $338,000. This address had a peak unrealized gain of over $19.96 million in August last year but did not reduce its position then. Between September 2023 and February 2024, the address accumulated 6,569.27 ETH at an average price of $1,792.1 (total cost: $11.77 million) and has since staked the holdings. The remaining half of its position remains near its cost basis.

On February 23, Coinglass data shows total network liquidations hit $238 million over the past hour—with long positions accounting for $232 million in liquidations and short positions just $5.54 million.

February 23 — Per LookOnChain data, a Matrixport-linked crypto whale has continued adding to its ETH long position amid the market slump, now holding 115,000 ETH (worth roughly $215.4M). The current unrealized loss tops $15.5M.

On February 23, Onchain Lens data indicates that as the crypto market declined again, a whale—whose ETH and BTC long positions were previously liquidated—has now opened a new 25x leveraged long position totaling 1700 ETH ($3.19 million). To date, the whale’s cumulative losses exceed $28.8 million.

On February 23, Bitcoin dipped below $66,000, with HTX market data showing a 3.12% decline over the past 24 hours.