We're excited to announce our new format "Crypto Daybook Americas" will replace "First Mover" on Feb. 24. "Crypto Daybook Americas" is your new morning briefing on what happened in crypto markets overnight to equip you with what you'll need to know about during the coming day. It will arrive in your inbox at 7 a.m. ET to kickstart your morning with comprehensive insights and analysis. If you want a preview, "Crypto Daybook Americas" is already being published on the CoinDesk website, so hop over and take a look. You don't need to do anything to sign up, you'll start receiving "Crypto Daybook Americas" automatically when it starts coming out.

CoinDesk 20 Index: 3,298.29 +1.49%
Bitcoin (BTC): $98,679.54 +1.18%
Ether (ETH): $2,800.02 +2.15%
S&P 500: 6,117.52 -0.43%
Gold: $2,929.76 -0.31%
Nikkei 225: 38,776.94 +0.26%

A message from Hex Trust

Bitcoin climbed to a two-week high just below $99,000 as altcoins mounted a recovery from the losses earlier this week. Gains of SUI and NEAR led the broad-market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index's advance over the past 24 hours. After past weeks' deleveraging, bitcoin's futures-to-spot ratio shows a higher increase in futures than spot, indicating this recovery is futures-driven, analytics firm Swissblock said in a morning note. Underscoring the weak spot demand, on Thursday spot BTC ETFs endured their largest outflow of the month. Swissblock noted that short positions are piling around $100,000, meaning that a break above that level could potentially trigger a squeeze higher by short-covering. "Until $100K is broken, we can’t confirm a trend reversal," Swissblock analysts concluded. In recent weeks, BTC has often sold off around U.S. traditional market opening, so traders should keep an eye on whether the gains reverse early in the session.

Ye, or Kanye West, is planning to launch a token despite previously saying that "coins prey on fans," sources familiar with the project confirmed to CoinDesk. The YZY token, with 70% of the supply dedicated to Ye, would provide the controversial artist an alternative avenue for cashing in on his celebrity status after multiple business partners cut ties with him for his anti-semitic outbursts and calling himself a Nazi. Recent celebrity-driven token launches provoked ire from the crypto industry as a way for insiders to extract capital from memecoin speculators.

Altvest Capital (ALV) became the first listed company in Africa to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as a strategic treasury asset. The South African alternative investment firm bought one BTC, following the footsteps of Strategy and other, predominantly U.S.-listed, public firms to add the largest cryptocurrency to its balance sheet. The firm said the decision was "focused on preserving shareholder value, mitigating currency depreciation risks, and gaining exposure to a globally recognized store of value."

The cryptocurrency market is lacking positive catalysts in the near term, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a report.

The correction in crypto markets in recent months has seen both bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures near backwardation, which is a sign of lower demand, the report said. Backwardation occurs when the spot price of an asset is higher than the price trading in the futures market.

"This is a negative development and indicative of demand weakness by those institutional investors that use regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure into these two cryptocurrencies," analysts led Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

If demand for bitcoin and ether futures is healthy, the futures cost more than the spot price, and the curve is said to be in contango, the bank noted.

Positive crypto initiatives by Trump's new administration are more likely to kick in during the second half of the year, the bank said, and this means institutional investors are likely taking profits due to a lack of short-term catalysts.

- Jacob Joseph