In a turn of events that would make even the most jaded investor weep, the crypto world witnessed a mass exodus of XRP from Binance, as whales spirited away $284 million in a single, decisive act of fiscal rebellion. One might suppose they were fleeing a fiscal apocalypse, though the precise nature of this calamity remains shrouded in the same mystique that has long surrounded the cryptocurrency market.
According to Nick Timiraos, the Wall Street Journal’s resident sage, forecasters expect both headline and core PCE to rise 0.37% month-over-month in December. That’s a 4.5% annualized pace, mind you. Core PCE would hit 3.0% year-over-year, the highest since February 2025, while headline PCE is pegged at 2.9%, a high not seen since March 2024. It’s enough to make a man wonder if the economy’s got a fever, and the only prescription is more inflation.
The man who traded a Gucci belt for orange jumpsuits in 2024 is back, sipping champagne where oligarchs weep into their caviar. Remember when he “learned a lot” in prison? Turns out, the curriculum included “How to Network with Billionaires Over Lobster Risotto.”
It now holds 867,798 ETH (valued at a staggering $1.72 billion), a figure that would make any accountant weep. In a world where most savants prefer “cold storage” like the Siberian solitudes, Sharplink has chosen to stake almost everything, as if it believed that trembling in the digital cold could bring redemption.
Aave (AAVE), that fickle minx, traded at $123 at the stroke of the scribe’s quill, a modest 0.6% rise in the past 24 hours. It teeters near the midpoint of its weekly range, between $110.29 and $131.29, like a tightrope walker pondering whether to proceed or plummet.
And what does this mean for Bitcoin and crypto markets? Oh, just the usual-short-term chaos and long-term existential pondering. You know, the kind of stuff that keeps traders up at night, clutching their LED tickers and muttering about fiat currencies.
In the relentless boom-and-bust ballet of digital assets, where fortunes rise and fall with the whims of the market, our dear Mr. O’Leary has taken to the social media pulpit. On the platform X-a fitting stage for such theatrics-he proclaims that bitcoin’s 50% plunge is but a rerun of a well-worn script. Institutions, those cautious titans, are refining their crypto portfolios, trimming the fat, and eyeing the quantum horizon with a mix of curiosity and dread.
As reported by the ever-astute Crypto Candy, Ethereum has forsaken its hallowed support zone, that once vibrant realm between $2,300 and $2,100. This area, which had valiantly absorbed the weight of selling pressure, has now succumbed to the forces of market chaos. The loss is not merely numerical; it heralds a significant shift in the very fabric of market structure, akin to the fall of a great empire, leaving behind echoes of what once was.
Some, with the optimism of a starving man dreaming of a feast, see in this struggle the birth pangs of a new ascent. Others, more cynical, whisper of traps laid by the gods of the market, where every bounce is but a prelude to a fall. Among these Cassandras stands Sherlock, a crypto soothsayer, who declares with grim relish that the path to $72,000 or $76,000 is not a road to redemption, but a slaughterhouse for the bulls.
Such is the nature of crypto lending services, which grow ever more expansive as digital assets blossom into broader financial utility, much like the humble potato in a well-tended garden. On the 18th of February, Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN), the darling of U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges, heralded the arrival of this newfound collateral – and what a merry day it is for borrowers!