The crypto markets are currently experiencing heightened levels of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), leading to significant volatility and speculative trading activity. FOMO in crypto refers to the fear investors feel when they perceive they are missing out on potential profits. Here’s what’s happening:
Crypto markets shift to extreme greed
The crypto market often experiences shifts in sentiment, ranging from fear to greed, which can significantly influence investor behavior and market dynamics. Recently, there has been a noticeable shift towards extreme greed in the crypto market, indicating heightened investor optimism and a strong appetite for risk-taking.
This shift is reflected in metrics such as the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which quantifies market psychology on a scale from fear to greed. Factors contributing to this shift may include positive news developments, such as the introduction of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
However, extreme greed in the market does not necessarily indicate an immediate sell signal; instead, it suggests a bullish sentiment that may lead to further price appreciation.
Spot ETFs in the limelight again!!
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States have established a new daily volume trading record, outperforming the previous record by more than one and a half times.
On February 28, the ten ETFs had $7.69 billion in volume, according to data uploaded on X by Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) accounted for 43.5% of the total, with $3.35 billion in trading activity, double its previous daily record.
“The total number of trades was double too, over half a million individual trades [between] them,” Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said in a February 28 X post.
The record volumes were later discovered to have contributed to the highest inflow day for US spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Coinbase recovers from service outage
Coinbase, a major crypto exchange, announced that the network was resuming normal operations following a technical problem that caused users to see zero balances on their accounts.
The problem has been ascribed to an upsurge in traffic after the price of Bitcoin momentarily reached $64,000 before reversing.
Earlier on February 28, many Coinbase customers were disappointed when they logged into the app and discovered that their account balances were zero. The situation generated some panic and uncertainty, with some believing there was a hack and that their funds had been stolen.
Coinbase, on the other hand, replied to the problem by claiming that user assets were safe. According to CEO Brian Armstrong on X, the app’s outage was caused by a “large surge of traffic.”
In a series of status updates on the Coinbase website, the business acknowledged the zero balance issue but also stated that there were issues with buying and selling. The exchange also claimed an improvement in customer trading, though it cautioned that increasing traffic may still cause “error in receives and some payment methods” for some users.
The most recent report, sent at 13:05 Pacific Standard Time (PST), stated, “We are starting to see Coinbase.com activity normalizing. We will continue to monitor our systems and provide updates.”
US gov’t moves $922 million of seized Bitcoin
The US authorities transferred $922 million worth of Bitcoin from two crypto wallets containing funds confiscated from Bitfinex in 2016.
The first test transfer, valued only one Bitcoin ($60,200 at the time), took place at 3:39 p.m. on February 28. According to Arkham Intelligence, the US government-labeled wallet then sent a second transaction costing 2,817 Bitcoin ($172.74 million), a third transaction worth 0.01 Bitcoin ($613.35), and a fourth transaction worth 12,267 Bitcoin ($748.46 million).
The authorities seized the cash in 2016 after Bitfinex was hacked for about 119,754 BTC, which is worth more than $7.4 billion at current prices.
The transfers happened a day after Ilya Lichtenstein, a hacker who stole and laundered over $4.5 billion in Bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange, appeared in a Washington court to explain how he carried out one of the world’s greatest Bitcoin thefts.
According to Bloomberg, Lichtenstein reportedly told a jury on February 27 that he had access to Bitfinex’s servers for several months while also hacking individual accounts at other exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.
