The current mainstream CEX and DEX funding rate displays market bearish sentiment on BTC and ETH stronger than on altcoins

February 2nd: BlackRock deposited 6,918 BTC (~$538.6M) and 58,327 ETH (~$133.6M) into Coinbase Prime within one hour, per LookIntoBitcoin data.

**February 2 News Flash** Analysts at Wall Street firm Bernstein predicted on February 2 that the current cryptocurrency market downturn will reverse into a recovery by 2026—this despite Bitcoin trading around $75,000 earlier Monday, a 40% drop from its all-time high. In a client report, analyst Gautam Chhugani and his team noted crypto could still be in a "short-term bear market cycle" but expect that trend to flip this year. Bitcoin may bottom out in the first half of 2024 near "the prior cycle’s peak of ~$60,000" before building a stronger base. The pullback was framed against Bitcoin’s underperformance relative to gold, timed with a year of large-scale gold buying by central banks worldwide. Bernstein noted that as countries like China and India ramped up gold reserve accumulation (with gold’s share of global reserves set to hit ~29% by end-2025), Bitcoin’s market cap has fallen to roughly 4% of gold’s—approaching a two-year low. Despite this weakness, Bernstein argues

On February 2, per official sources, Binance Alpha is set to list Echelon (ELON). Eligible users will be able to claim the airdrop via Alpha Points on the Alpha Events page once trading commences.

On February 2, Bitget market data shows gold’s spot price briefly topped $4,800 per ounce and is now trading at $4,785 per ounce.

February 2nd Bitcoin has dropped more than 35% since hitting an all-time high in October 2023 and then plummeting—but exchanges like Coinbase Global Inc., Gemini Space Station Inc., and Bullish have taken an even harder hit. Trading volume, their business’s core driver, is shrinking fast, pushing their stock prices down 40% to 55% in the past three months and leaving analysts to slash their forecasts sharply. Most crypto exchanges get most of their revenue from trading fees, so revenue falls when trading dries up. Clear Street analyst Owen Lau estimates Coinbase’s Q4 trading volume fell 40% year-over-year (YoY) to $264 billion. He noted January trading activity kept sliding, with the quarter’s year-to-date annualized volume now under half of last year’s same-period level. Citigroup digital asset equities research head Peter Christiansen said more people trade during price rallies out of FOMO (fear of missing out). But when faced with headwinds, momentum is hard to build. Cry

February 2nd — Binance will convert its ZAMA pre-market contract to a standard trading contract starting at 21:00 Beijing time on February 2nd, per official sources. Trading of the ZAMAUSDT perpetual contract and existing positions will remain unaffected during the transition period. After the transition wraps up, the maximum leverage for the contract will be raised to 25x.