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: 3,220.52 -0.94%
Bitcoin (BTC): $97,681.28 -0.90%
Ether (ETH): $2,751.34 -0.73%
S&P 500: 6,083.57 +0.36%
Gold: $2,889.99 +046%
Nikkei 225: 38,819 -0.60%

The crypto market remains directionless, with bitcoin (BTC) languishing below $100,000 before the U.S. jobs report. CryptoQuant said bitcoin's fair value lies between $48,000 and $95,000, meaning it appears overvalued at its current price of around $98,000. Still, prices could surge if the nonfarm payrolls figure due at 13:30 UTC prints weak, sending the dollar index and Treasury yields lower. Crypto newsletter service LondonCryptoClub recommends keeping an eye on revisions in previous figures. "Bloomberg Intelligence expecting some large downside revisions suggesting the Labour market [is] not as strong in 2024 as first appeared. We still think the market (and the Fed themselves) are massively under pricing the rate cuts that will need to come," the newsletter service's founders said on X.

Investment firm VanEck predicts that Solana's SOL token will touch $520 by the end of 2025. “Using an autoregressive (AR) forecast model, we estimate Solana’s market cap will reach ~$250B, implying a SOL price of $520 based on ~486M floating tokens,” it said. SOL will surge as demand for smart contract platforms and M2 money supply increases, the firm said. The M2 money supply will grow to $22.3 trillion by 2025 from the current $21.5 trillion, the firm noted. SOL changed hands at $198 at press time. Early this week, a large put spread in SOL options crossed the tape on Deribit, hinting at expectations for a price slide to $120 by the end of February.

Ether (ETH) has underperformed other cryptocurrencies in recent months as the Ethereum blockchain has faced "intense" competition from other networks, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a Wednesday research report. The token lacks a compelling narrative like that of its larger peer bitcoin, the bank said, adding that BTC benefits from its perception as a store of value or "digital gold." Notably, the network's growth lags behind rival Solana, the investment banking giant said. "Competitive pressures have led some decentralized applications (dapps) to migrate from Ethereum to other application-specific chains for better performance," analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made several updates on existing crypto-related ETF applications. The regulator acknowledged Grayscale's Solana and Litecoin ETF application as well as BlackRock's proposal to allow for in-kind creations and redemptions on iShares Bitcoin ETF.

Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, called the acknowledgement notable given that it’s the first time an ETF filing for a cryptocurrency that was previously deemed a security has been acknowledged by the SEC. “We are now in new territory, albeit just a baby step, but seemingly the direct result of leadership change,” he wrote in a post on X.

Meanwhile, Cboe filed several 19b-4 documents to list and trade the prospective XRP ETFs issued by Bitwise, 21Shares, Canary Capital and WisdomTree.

- Omkar Godbole