(08/52) Weekly Market Insights: Risk appetite narrows

Hot News

• Bitcoin price fluctuations narrowed last week, closing slightly down about 0.36% for the week. As uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment gradually intensifies, investors' risk appetite has declined. Bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly net outflow since September 2024, reaching $652 million.

Macro Outlook

• Powell reiterated in his testimony to Congress that the Federal Reserve will remain patient and wait-and-see on the path of interest rate cuts.
• The US inflation rate rose to 3% in January, higher than the market expectation of 2.9%. At the same time, the producer price index (PPI) rose to 3.5% in January, much higher than the market expectation of 3.2%. Nevertheless, based on some components of the PPI, most economists lowered their forecast range for the core personal consumption expenditure price index (Core PCE) in January from 0.4% to 0.45% to 0.22% to 0.3%. The milder inflation expectations suppressed the 10-year US Treasury yield, bringing it down from a high of 4.66% to 4.48%.
• Howard Lutnick, the president's nominee for Commerce Secretary, said the study on reciprocal tariffs should be completed by April 1, at which time Trump could take immediate action.

The upcoming economic calendar includes:

• Thursday, February 20, 3:00 AM: FOMC Minutes

Cryptocurrency Market Quick Facts

• The Wisconsin State Retirement Fund increased its IBIT holdings from 2,889,251 shares to 6,060,351 shares in the fourth quarter of 2024.
• Argentine President Javier Milei faces impeachment risk for promoting the LIBRA token, which collapsed shortly after listing. The token was sold in advance by team insiders, some KOLs, and some people on the Jupiter team who were suspected of having inside information.

Layer 1 and Layer 2 Public Chains

• XION is working with Uber to launch the mainnet through EarnOS, helping Uber expand its customer base and reward users with real needs.
• Arbitrum launched the BoLD mechanism on the mainnet to achieve permissionless verification of Layer-2 networks.
• Web3 social platform Lens announced that Lens Chain will use GHO as the gas token of the chain.
• Union Fintech uses the zkSync technology architecture to launch Union Chain to establish a compliant exchange and RWA tokenization platform.

Dapps

• Ondo announced a strategic partnership with World Liberty Finance to integrate tokenized securities on USDY, OUSG and the upcoming GM platform into the WLFI platform.
• Lido V3 introduces stVaults, a customizable vault solution that supports specific node operator connections, leverage strategies, and re-collateralization exposure configurations that facilitate institutional-grade staking.
• Uniswap launched its much-anticipated Unichain, a Layer-2 network that has attracted over $25M TVL in a week.
• VaderAI launches Early Agent Offering, an Agent token pre-sale launchpad designed for VADER stakers. Stakers who sell pre-sale tokens early will have their whitelist points slashed, while long-term holders will receive more points for the next pre-sale round.
• Unit is the tokenization layer of Hyperliquid. The protocol aims to introduce native BTC into Hyperliquid and provide a unified order book spot trading experience. In the future, it is also planned to integrate more spot assets such as ETH and SOL into Hyperliquid.
• Nous Research launches DeepHermes-3 Preview, a new generation of LLM that combines reasoning capabilities with intuitive language models.
• RedStone, an oracle focused on underlying asset pricing, launches the RED token. The token can be staked through the EigenLayer AVS mechanism to enhance the security of the oracle network. 51.7% of the token supply is allocated to the team and investors, with the first major unlocking period after 12 months.
• MyShell launched the SHELL token as its native token to reward AI Agent creators and as a payment token for using MyShell AI tools. At the same time, MyShell announced a major update to ShellAgent, including more seamless no-coding AI configuration, more direct social media interaction, and more on-chain assisted transaction features.

Governance/Project Updates

• CoinDesk will host the Consensus conference in Hong Kong from February 18 to 20.
• Jupiter will begin using 50% of the protocol fees for buybacks on Monday. In addition, Jupiter expects to release a technical preview of Jupnet in April.
• Kaito has launched the KAITO token, which will serve as the platform utility token, platform coin, and governance token for its platform. Token generation has been spotted on the Base network, and more details are expected to be announced this week.
• The Ethereum Foundation has deployed 45,000 ETH to participate in DeFi protocols such as AAVE, Spark Finance and Compound, and plans to further explore decentralized staking protocols.
• Liquity V2 discovered a security vulnerability in the Stability Pools and is expected to release a redeployment update next week. Meanwhile, Quill Finance has launched a friendly fork on the Scroll network, with two more forks expected to be launched this week and more planned for March.
• Doodle announced that it will launch the DOOD token on Solana.
• OpenSea has announced that it will soon launch the SEA token, but has yet to release specific details.

Token Unlock

• MELANIA tokens were unlocked on February 20th and account for 23.3% of the total token supply.
• IMX tokens were unlocked on February 21 and represent 1.41% of the total token supply.
• PLUME tokens were unlocked on February 21st and account for 5.32% of the total token supply.
• ALT tokens were unlocked on February 25th and account for 9.47% of the total token supply.
• OP tokens were unlocked on February 28th and account for 2.39% of the total token supply.
• GRASS tokens were unlocked on February 28th and represent 1.52% of the total token supply.
• SUI tokens were unlocked on March 1st and represent 2.60% of the total token supply.
• ENA tokens were unlocked on March 2 and represent 3.02% of the total token supply.
• JTO tokens were unlocked on March 7th and account for 3.84% of the total token supply.