Jerome Powell, Jackson Hole Weigh on Digital Assets: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All occasions ET except indicated in any other case)

There’s a be aware of warning seeping into crypto markets, with bitcoin

sliding below $115,000 and ether (ETH) falling to $4,220 forward of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on the Jackson Hole Symposium later this week. The CoinDesk 20 Index, a measure of the largest tokens, has dropped greater than 4.5% previously 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s drop took the most important cryptocurrency to beneath it is 50-day easy shifting common (SMA) and marks fairly a retrenchment from the report excessive of $124,000 it registered final week. In ether’s case, on-chain knowledge signifies a danger of huge liquidations at $4,170.

“More than $400m in long positions were liquidated overnight as BTC slid from 118k to 115k and ETH from 4,500 to 4,300,” QCP Capital stated in a market replace. “This extends last week’s 5 % pullback amid over $1bn of DeFi liquidations and profit‑taking. Funding rates have turned negative and risk reversals favor puts, suggesting cautious positioning ahead of Jackson Hole.”

Notably, ether losses come after the second-largest cryptocurrency confronted a report validator exit queue, with 855,158 tokens value over $3.5 billion seeking to go away. Furthermore, final week, BlackRock’s ether ETF (ETHA) registered a report buying and selling quantity of 364.25 million shares, in accordance with knowledge supply TradingView. The fund additionally registered report inflows of $2.32 billion.

“Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs clocked a record-breaking US$40 billion in weekly trading volume, with Ethereum contributing US$17 billion, and US$2.85 billion of that in net inflows. This isn’t just short-term momentum; we’re seeing the infrastructure solidify around crypto in real time,” Mena Theodorou, a co-founder of crypto change Coinstash, stated.

Speaking of the broader market, the bitcoin-to-altcoin liquidations ratio continued to slip, reaching its lowest level since early 2024, in accordance with knowledge supply CryptoQuant. (See Chart of the Day.) The drop exhibits altcoins have been experiencing extra speculative exercise relative to bitcoin, a dynamic usually noticed at market tops.

Monero attacker Qubic’s neighborhood overwhelmingly voted in favor of concentrating on the Dogecoin community over ZCash. DOGE dropped over 4%, disappointing bulls positioned for a rally following final week’s golden crossover.

In conventional markets, gold rose, European shares dropped and U.S. inventory index futures had been muted as merchants awaited a key assembly between European leaders and President Donald Trump over Ukraine’s future. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto
  • Aug. 18: Coinbase Derivatives will launch nano SOL and nano XRP U.S. perpetual-style futures.
  • Aug. 20: Qubic (QUBIC), the quickest blockchain ever recorded, will bear its first yearly halving occasion as a part of a managed emission mannequin. Although gross emissions stay fastened at one trillion QUBIC tokens per week, the adaptive burn charge will improve considerably — burning some 28.75 trillion tokens and decreasing web efficient emissions to about 21.25 trillion tokens.
• Macro
  • Aug. 18, 1 p.m. ET: President Donald Trump will greet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the White House, adopted by a bilateral assembly. European leaders will be part of for a multilateral assembly together with Zelensky beginning at 3 p.m.
  • Aug. 18, 6 p.m.: The Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador releases July producer worth inflation knowledge.
  • Aug. 19, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases July client worth inflation knowledge.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 0.1%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.7%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 0.1%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 1.9%
  • Aug. 19, 2:10 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman will converse on “Fostering New Technology in the Banking System” on the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025. Watch stay.
  • Aug. 19, 4 p.m.: The Central Bank of Uruguay publicizes its financial coverage resolution.
    • Monetary Policy Rate Prev. 9%
  • Aug. 20, 11 a.m.: Fed Governor Christopher J. Waller will converse on “Payments” on the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025. Watch stay.
  • Aug. 20, 2 p.m.: The Fed will launch the FOMC minutes from the July 29-30 assembly.
• Earnings (Estimates primarily based on RealitySet knowledge)
  • Aug. 18: Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, -$0.12

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • SoSoValue DAO is voting to allocate 5 million SOSO tokens for a Researcher Ecosystem Fund geared toward boosting top-tier crypto analysis by way of competitions and incentives, bettering content material high quality, transparency and SOSO’s utility. Voting ends Aug. 18.
  • Uniswap DAO is voting to allocate $540,000 in UNI over six months to as many as 15 prime delegates, with as much as $6,000 a month primarily based on voting exercise, neighborhood engagement, proposal authorship and holding 1,000+ UNI. Voting ends Aug. 18
  • Aavegotchi DAO is voting on a Bitcoin Ben’s Crypto Club Las Vegas sponsorship: a $1,000/month company membership (brand on sponsor wall, staff entry, publication function, one branded meetup/month) or a $5,000, 90-day Graffiti Wall mural with promo. Voting ends Aug. 23.
• Unlocks
  • Aug. 18: Fasttoken to unlock 4.64% of its circulating provide value $91.6 million.
  • Aug. 20: LayerZero to unlock 8.53% of its circulating provide value $57.59 million.
  • Aug. 20: Kaito (KAITO) to unlock 8.82% of its circulating provide value $27.55 million.
• Token Launches
  • OPENPAD TOKEN (OPAD) lists on KuCoin
  • Backroom (ROOM) lists on LBank

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation convention (previously often called State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique occasion held in Washington on Sept. 10 that enables basic counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to fulfill with public officers chargeable for crypto laws and regulatory oversight. Space is restricted. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration by way of Aug. 31.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Solana’s on-chain liquidations exceeded wipeouts at centralized exchanges in the course of the weekend hunch, with $37.4 million of SOL flushed on the blockchain versus $20.9 million on CEXs. Drift and Hyperliquid carried many of the stream, displaying how a lot perp exercise has migrated on-chain.
• Hyperliquid OI in SOL hit a report $1.2 billion at the same time as Binance volumes slipped. Total OI is again close to $5 billion, with whales break up: 59 wallets lengthy, 70 quick. One standout, “White Whale,” holds a $79 million 20x leveraged lengthy now sitting $1.22 million within the purple.
• Ecosystem charges are again above $1 million a day as Jupiter, Jito and Kamino see recent inflows. Stablecoins on Solana have crossed $12 billion, with practically half of latest capital migrating in from Ethereum.
• A Shiba inu whale shifted 3 trillion SHIB (~$38 million) off Coinbase Institutional into chilly storage on Aug. 15, signaling conviction over buying and selling. The pockets had no prior historical past.
• The transfer coincided with SHIB’s burn charge leaping practically 2,000% in 24 hours, with 4.7 million tokens destroyed. Supply compression stays a key narrative for the neighborhood.
• Developers are prepping cross-chain growth to Base and Solana utilizing Chainlink CCIP alongside a brand new dev hub and DEX to deepen liquidity. Price motion is regular close to $0.000013, with technicals pointing to a gradual grind increased.

Derivatives Positioning

• Bitcoin’s worth decline since Friday is marked by a gradual improve in futures open curiosity (OI), which has surged to 720,000 BTC, essentially the most since Aug. 2.
• At the identical time, optimistic funding charges are fading, indicating that bearish quick positions are gaining momentum out there.
• The similar could be stated for the ether market, the place open curiosity has elevated to 14.34 million ETH, additionally the very best since Aug. 2.
• OI in LINK, which has bucked the broader market weak spot, reached a report excessive 68.13 million LINK, alongside annualized funding charges of round 10%. The mixture factors to investor curiosity in chasing worth beneficial properties.
• On the CME, open curiosity in Solana futures hovers at a report excessive of over 4.6 million SOL. However, the annualized three-month premium has declined sharply to fifteen% from 35% final week. The premium for BTC and ETH stays locked close to 10%.
• Open curiosity in CME bitcoin futures stays nicely beneath July highs, pointing to low participation from institutional merchants. The OI right here has continued to print decrease highs since December, diverging bearishly from the brand new highs within the spot worth.
• On Deribit, danger reversals out to November expiry confirmed a bias for put choices because the spot worth drop spurred demand for draw back safety. In ETH’s case, bearishness was pronounced on the short-end.
• Block flows featured an enormous quick strangle, involving writing of $4.4K places and $4.7K calls. The dealer collected a premium of $680,000, betting on a rangeplay between $4,040 and $5,020.
• In BTC’s case, a dealer picked up the Sept. 25 expiry put choice at $110,000, anticipating a worth sell-off.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 1.84% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $115,205.89 (24hrs: -2.73%)
• ETH is down 2.75% at $4,305.90 (24hrs: -5.77%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1.93% at 4,057.54 (24hrs: -4.56%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 8 bps at 2.85%
• BTC funding charge is at 0.0018% (1.9392% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.14% at 97.99
• Gold futures are up 0.43% at $3,397.00
• Silver futures are up 0.65% at $38.22
• Nikkei 225 closed up 0.77% at 43,714.31
• Hang Seng closed down 0.37% at 25,176.85
• FTSE is unchanged at 9,132.66
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.46% at 5,423.34
• DJIA closed on Friday unchanged at 44,946.12
• S&P 500 closed down 0.29% at 6,449.80
• Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.4% at 21,622.98
• S&P/TSX Composite closed unchanged at 27,905.49
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.23% at 2,686.10
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury charge is down 3.3 bps at 4.295%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.19% at 6,459.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.2% at 23,756.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.11% at 44,992.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.7% (+0.48%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03698 (-2.92%)
• Hashrate (seven-day shifting common): 957 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $56.04
• Total charges: 2.54 BTC / $299,765
• CME Futures Open Interest: 141,755 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 34.3 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 9.74%

Technical Analysis

• The chart exhibits greenback index’s (DXY) weekly worth motion within the candlesticks format.
• The DXY has didn’t penetrate the previous support-turned-resistance at 99.58.
• The repeated bull failure means that promoting strain is sort of sturdy and the index might endure a deeper decline.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $366.32 (-1.78%), -2.03% at $358.90 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $317.55 (-2.26%), -1.78% at $311.90
• Circle (CRCL): closed at $149.26 (+7.2%), -1.03% at $147.72
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $26.09 (-8.68%), -2.26% at $25.50
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $69.54 (-6.82%), -4.23% at $66.60
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.67 (-0.51%), -2.11% at $15.34
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.33 (-7.51%), -1.68% at $11.14
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $14.13 (+2.13%), +0.28% at $14.17
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.75 (-2.01%), -2.05% at $9.55
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $26.70 (-1%), -4.08% at $25.61
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $33.84 (-3.67%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.82 (+7.34%), unchanged in pre-market
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $19.85 (-15.5%), -4.23% at $19.01

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily web flows: -$14.13 million
• Cumulative web flows: $54.97 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily web flows: -$59.34 million
• Cumulative web flows: $12.67 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.49 million

Source: Farside Investors

Chart of the Day

• The bitcoin-to-altcoin liquidations ratio peaked in November and has declined sharply since July.
• It exhibits that an growing variety of merchants have been speculating within the altcoin market, resulting in the pressured closure of positions on hostile worth swings.

While You Were Sleeping

• Zelensky Brings Backup to the White House as Trump Aligns More Closely With Putin (The New York Times): European leaders’ Washington go to goals to safeguard NATO cohesion and Ukraine’s sovereignty after Trump dropped a ceasefire-first stance, fueling fears he might strain Zelensky into concessions favoring Putin.
• Ether Market May Become More Exciting Below $4.2K. Here is Why. (CoinDesk): Large clusters of ETH longs at $4,170 and beneath put $236 million in danger, with analysts warning cascading liquidations might snowball into as a lot as $5 billion in pressured promoting.
• Metaplanet Expands Bitcoin Treasury by 775 BTC, Assets Outweigh Debt 18-Fold (CoinDesk): The buy, made at a mean worth of 17.72 million yen ($120,500) per bitcoin, lifts the corporate’s complete holdings to 18,888 BTC, value roughly 284.1 billion yen ($1.95 billion).
• Japan’s First Yen-Denominated Stablecoin to Be Approved by the Financial Services Agency, JPC To Be Issued as Early as Autumn (Nikkei): JPYC, a Tokyo-based agency, will register as a cash switch operator this month to situation a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the yen and backed by financial institution deposits and Japanese authorities bonds.
• Bolivia’s Left in Historic Defeat as Presidential Vote Set for October Runoff (Reuters): Centrist Rodrigo Paz, conservative Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga and leftist Eduardo del Castillo secured 32.18%, 26.94% and three.16% of the vote, respectively. No candidate cleared 40%, forcing an Oct. 19 runoff election.
• Trump Pressure Lights Fire Under Mexico’s ‘Powder Keg’ Ruling Party (Financial Times): Trump’s tariffs, financial institution sanctions and cartel allegations towards senior officers are pressuring President Claudia Sheinbaum as she navigates U.S. calls for and protectionist insurance policies inherited from former president López Obrador.

In the Ether