Goldman Sachs: If Middle East Situation Deteriorates Rapidly, Fed Has Room for Two Rate Cuts This Year

On March 4th, Bitcoin briefly topped $72,000, posting a 6.9% 24-hour gain, per HTX market data.

March 4th, Bitcoin staged a strong rebound, surging above $71,000, according to data from Coinglass. Funding rates across major centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have turned positive, approaching neutral as short sentiment has eased significantly. Specific funding rates for major cryptocurrencies are shown in the attached chart. **BlockBeats Note**: Funding rates are set by crypto exchanges to balance contract prices with underlying asset prices, typically applying to perpetual contracts. This is a funding 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 aligned with underlying asset prices. A 0.01% funding rate serves as the baseline: rates above 0.01% signal generally bullish market sentiment, while rates below 0.005% indicate bearish sentiment.

On March 4th, market sources note the European Union (EU) will likely be exempt from the U.S.'s proposed universal 15% tariff hike. (Golden Ten)

On March 4, blockchain analytics platform Onchain Lens reported that GSR withdrew 3,000 ETH (valued at approximately $6.23 million) from Binance three hours earlier.

March 4 — Federal Reserve Governor Milan says a 1 percentage point rate cut this year is appropriate. (Xinhua News Agency) ### Notes on American English adaptation: 1. **Date format**: Uses "March 4" (common in U.S. news for numeric dates without trailing "th" in casual/concise contexts, though "March 4th" is also acceptable; the em dash after the date aligns with U.S. news style for attribution). 2. **Abbreviations**: "Fed" is the standard shorthand for "Federal Reserve" in U.S. financial news, but kept "Federal Reserve Governor" for clarity (if brevity is priority, could use "Fed Governor Milan" instead). 3. **Tone**: Uses the simple present "says" (common in U.S. news for breaking statements) instead of more formal verbs like "stated". 4. **Conciseness**: Shortened "interest rate cut" to "rate cut" (standard in U.S. financial discourse). 5. **Source attribution**: Kept "(Xinhua News Agency)" as is (U.S. news retains full agency names for non-domestic sources). If maximum

March 4 — Stablecoin infrastructure firm Cyclops has closed an $8 million funding round, with backers including Castle Island Ventures, F-Prime, and Shift4 Payments. The company’s valuation was not disclosed. Cyclops focuses on building a foundational layer to speed up stablecoin adoption. Co-CEO Alex Wilson said: “Our vision is to become the go-to platform for payment companies when developing various stablecoin solutions.”