At 14:30 CET today, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the January jobs report.
More than $3.1 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expired today at 09:00 CET on Deribit, the biggest Bitcoin and Ethereum options exchange, ahead of the release of the US jobs data.
Options worth 26,000 BTC ($2.54 billion) and 203,000 ETH ($560 million) expired. The put-call ratios were 0.58 for Bitcoin and 0.46 for Ethereum, indicating generally bullish sentiment as traders favored call options (bets on price increases) over put options (bets on price decreases). The max pain points - prices where most options expire worthless, which market makers often try to push prices toward during expiry to maximize their profits - were $99,500 for Bitcoin and $2,950 for Ethereum, which, compared to last week's max pain points ($98,000 for BTC and $3,300 for ETH), showed slightly improved sentiment for Bitcoin with a modest increase, while Ethereum's lower max pain point showed declining optimism.
Though crypto markets have recently focused on Trump administration's crypto initiatives, attention has shifted back to macroeconomic factors. With the strengthening dollar and rising 10-year bond yields, combined with uncertainty around the labor market's health, crypto sentiment remains cautious.
January's non-farm payrolls are expected to show slower job growth compared to the previous month. Recent weekly jobless claims data came in higher than expected at 219,000, up from 208,000. While this suggests a cooling labor market in 2024, there's debate about whether this slowdown is significant enough to influence Federal Reserve policy. The CME FedWatch tool shows increasing market expectations for the Fed to maintain current rates in March, with the probability now at 85.5%, up from 61.77% a month ago.
US Bitcoin Spot ETFs recorded net outflows of $140m on Feb 6, wiping out the inflows seen a day prior. Meanwhile, ETH ETFs recoded a modest $10.7m net daily inflow.
JP Morgan's eTrading survey, which includes more than 4,200 institutional traders, showed that 71% of institutional traders have no plans to trade crypto/digital coins, down from 78% in 2024.
Ripple's XRP was excluded from Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) list of approved cryptocurrencies for trading, causing its price to drop 12%. While other major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink were approved, XRP's omission appears to be related to Ripple's ongoing legal challenges, particularly its lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding whether XRP should be classified as a security. It is currently trading at $2.30, a 25.22% decrease from a week ago.
Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) ordered Apple and Google to remove 5 Crypto exchange apps: Bybit, MEXC Global, LBank, KuCoin, and Bitget to reinforce regulatory compliance and consumer protection.
The Russian government launched a new mandatory nationwide registry for BTC mining equipment in an effort to put an end to illegal mining operations, specifically targeting mining in the regions where the activity has been prohibited since December. This lead miners in Russia to worry about sanctions as government starts collecting wallet addresses, as a leak of this registry could be a “big gift to [their] geopolitical opponents”.
Deribit, who is Dubai-based with a Dutch parent company, is banning Russian users to comply with new EU sanctions. Starting Feb 17, Russian accounts will switch to "reduce-only" mode, and all positions will be forcibly closed by March 29, although withdrawals will remain open, though Russians with EEA citizenship/residency are exempt. As Russians represent Deribit's second-largest user group, this move could impact the exchange more significantly than Russia's crypto market, especially since Russian traders have access to competing platforms.
Chase Herro, co-founder of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the DeFi project of US President Trump, said that the platform plans to create a "strategic reserve", without specifying what the goal of the reserve would be.
9,220 victims were affected by phishing attacks in January, with losses totaling $10.25 million. Additionally, according to the SlowMist Hacked Database, the total loss from Web3 security incidents was approximately $98.19 million.
