「Abraxas Capital」 Flattens Its WTI Crude Oil Short Position, Increasing Its Holding to $14.96 Million

March 17th, cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute released a market analysis noting the Middle East conflict has entered its third week of escalation: Brent crude prices jumped 26% that week, while markets revised 2026 rate-cut expectations down to just one cut. Against this backdrop, crypto outperformed all major asset classes except oil—BTC rose for the week, while stocks, bonds, and gold all posted declines. On the macro front, annualized core PCE hit 3.1%, non-farm payrolls fell by 92k, and the unemployment rate climbed to 4.4%—stagflation is now the baseline scenario. This week, the Federal Reserve (Fed), European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of Japan (BOJ), and Bank of England (BOE) will all announce interest rate decisions on the same day, marking the most concentrated macro event in recent months. Wintermute said current conditions are more favorable than they’ve been in months. **Coinbase’s premium reset, ETF inflows, and institutional trading flows all align.** Still, caut

March 17th — Per monitoring from onchainschool.pro, some VVV token whales are offloading the asset. One address has already unlocked its tokens and is gradually selling ~$600k worth of VVV; it also holds an additional $600k in the token. Additionally, another bot account holding ~$200k in VVV remains active in selling. At press time, VVV trades at $5.63, down 8.1% over the past 24 hours.

Reuters reported on March 17 that Vietnam plans to launch a licensed cryptocurrency centralized exchange (CEX) pilot program as early as this month—aiming to curb domestic users’ trading on foreign platforms and tighten capital flow oversight. A March 12 document from Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance reveals five firms have passed initial qualification reviews: affiliates of three private banks (Techcombank, VPBank, LPBank), securities brokerage VIX Securities, and major private conglomerate Sun Group. The 5-year pilot will cap licensed exchanges at five, with strict entry rules: a minimum registered capital of 100 trillion Vietnamese dong (≈$3.79 billion) and a 49% foreign ownership limit. The ministry is drafting regulations to ban Vietnamese citizens from offshore crypto trading; violators face a maximum fine of 1 billion dong (≈$3,800). Analysts note the ban could force over 17 million Vietnamese crypto holders to exit overseas CEXs like Binance and Bybit. Enforcement will

**March 17 — According to South Korean outlet *The Korea Economic Daily*, Bitmax — a KOSDAQ-listed firm and Bitcoin custody provider in South Korea — transferred roughly 550 BTC from its wallet to centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) including OKX, Bitget, Binance, and Bybit. On-chain data shows the transfers began on January 15 and wrapped up on February 5.** **Bitmax noted the move was only to custody addresses and that it still holds all the bitcoins, but did not specify the exact reason for the transfer. If the relevant BTC was sold, it would indicate the company liquidated its Bitcoin holdings without disclosing the action.**

March 17: Per data from HyperInsight Monitoring, London Metal Exchange (LME) copper inventories jumped by 18,775 metric tons, notching a new 2019-high—sharply mounting supply pressures that weighed on copper prices. Following this development, the COPPER (Copper Futures Index Contract) on Hyperliquid briefly dropped more than 1.4%, last trading at $5.76. Long positions bore the brunt of the move: the largest COPPER long position on Hyperliquid (address 0x877) saw its floating loss widen to 41%. The position holds an approximate size of $4.02 million, with an average entry price of $5.998 and a liquidation price of $5.313.

Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo tweeted on March 17 that Bitcoin’s short-term on-chain inflows are strong, potentially pushing the price to test $85,000 based on short-term holder cost metrics. However, he noted a futures-led rally is vulnerable to cascading liquidations. Woo also warned the latest rebound is a bull trap, as the bear market’s bottom structure has yet to form. Per liquidity indicators, Bitcoin is only one-third through its current bear market cycle.