Morning Minute | Bitcoin Reaches $50k as ETF Inflows Ramp Up

TylerD's Market Summary

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📈 $50,000 Per Bitcoin

The "sell the news" crowd was right.

For about 2 weeks.

But they missed perhaps the biggest and most important Bitcoin trade of this cycle - the ETF pump.

What Happened?

Yesterday Bitcoin pumped 4.5% to $50,000. It's up 17% on the week and +105% on the year.

The primary driver?

ETF inflows.

A few key stats from the BTC ETFs:

• The ETFs have taken in $1.44B in the past 3 days
• Total ETF inflows are up to $3.144B in their first month of existence
• The total BTC held in ETFs hit an ATH of 682k BTC as of Feb 9 (up ~10% on the month)

These are incredible inflows, and they have been rapidly increasing in the past week.

As long as that trend continues, the price of BTC is going in 1 direction - up only.

Amidst all the fun, Michael Saylor jumped on the mic.

During a CNBC interview yesterday, he said MicroStrategy is "now a Bitcoin development company, in the same way you would see a real estate or petroleum developer."

Incredible. Incredible for shareholders as well, who have seen MSTR go from $450 to $717 in the past 2.5 weeks (also +187% on the year).

But BTC isn't the only cryptocurrency having fun these days.

ETH ETFs Next?

ETH is finally catching a bid as well, up 7.7% on the day to $2,680 (+15% on the week).

And for similar reasons as Bitcoin - the ETH ETFs are squarely in sight.

Yesterday, Franklin Templeton filed for a spot ETH ETF.

They join the ranks of a similar cohort from the BTC ETFs, along with VanEck, ARK, BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and Grayscale.

This would make 9 ETH ETF applicants, with final deadlines for approval spanning May '24 through Aug '24.

The approval seems simply a matter of when and not if this time.

Polymarket has the odds of the first ETH ETF approved by May 31 at 49% with $1M bet.

A coin flip.

If the ETH ETFs catch anywhere near the level of inflows as the BTC ETFs, it's going to be a fun summer for ETH maxis.

Let's hope the inflows continue.

🎁 Pixelmon Airdrop & Tokenomics Details Released

We have known a Pixelmon token was coming - now we know a lot more.

On Monday, the MON Protocol released its tokenomics details.

At a high level, it will be on ETH as an ERC-20, 1B in total supply and a healthy chunk will be allocated to the Pixelmon community.

Token breakdown:

• Community Claim: 30%
• Community Sale: 6%
• Ecosystem Fund: 29%
• Team: 15%
• Strategic Sale: 13%
• Liquidity: 5%
• Launch Contributors: 2%

Pixelmon holders will be the primary winners, with 36% of the MON supply dedicated to them directly and another 29% through the Ecosystem Fund.

Those tokens will unlock over 48 months, with 5% of the community tokens unlocked at TGE.

The team has big plans for the token's use, including:

• Gaming: preferred gaming currency for all Pixelmon games
• Governance
• Launching blockchain native IPs
• Creator grants
• Community airdrops via mission rewards
• Licensing flows for fractionalized IPs

Yes, governance is included, meaning the MON DAO will launch as a component of this move forward.

Market Response

Surprisingly, the market didn't move much on the news.

Pixelmon NFTs were up 11% to 1.68 ETH on the day. A nice move, especially with ETH pumping, but perhaps a bit underwhelming given such positive tokenomics for holders.

It should be noted that they are up over 100% on the 90-day view, so they have been moving.

Perhaps these tokenomics have already been baked into the price action.

Now we wait and see what the token launch does for this ecosystem, in what will be our newest data point in a major NFT project launching a token.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH trading volume fell to $21.4M on Monday, not a surprise against the crypto rally, becoming the lowest volume day of January; NFT leaders were mostly red on the day
• Wonky Stonks and KillaBears led top movers on ETH, jumping 51% and 44% respectively
• Pandora rebounded 60% from its local bottom to reach $235M in market cap and 9.7 ETH for its NFTs
• Another Ether Rock sold early this AM, this time for 279 ETH ($740,000) ahead of the Sotheby's auction which kicks off today
• Moonbirds are literally headed to the moon today, at least the Space Helmet ones, as they ride to the moon as a part of the Lunaprise Museum 254
• Artist Grant Yun announced an upcoming solo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, in late March
• Quantum Cats led action on BTC with just 13 BTC in trading volume and its floor up to 0.252 BTC; OMB held at 0.7, RSIC fell another 10% to 0.064, NodeMonkes steady at 0.174 floor and Puppets at 0.07
• Solana NFTs were mixed on Monday with Mad Lads -3% to 159 SOL and Tensorians +2% to 84
• Solana Mobile officially reached 100,000 preorders for its Solana Mobile 2 device at $450/piece, meaning a $45M raise for the team
• Backpack shared an airdrop-related announcement, telling its followers "Backpack Exchange volume matters...Tensor points matter"
• Magic Eden announced that its ETH marketplace will launch on Feb 27, and that it will include Limit Break's Payment Processor protocol (saving gas and ensuring royalty enforcement)

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are mega green this morning; BTC +4.3% at $49,920; ETH +8% at $2,676; SOL +9.3% at $113.50
• A few memecoins saw major rallies, with MOG up 100% to $60M marketcap and WIF up 39% to $392M
• Jupiter integrated support for SPL22s via Jupiter Swag on Monday, with $JUP +%% to $0.499
• Blast shared that 3,000 teams have already registered for its Big Bang competition, a sign that there will be heavy competition for web3 users in the months to come (i.e. token and point opportunities)

🚀 NFT Total Volume (ETH)

• Pudgy Penguins (1,863 ETH, 19.43 ETH Floor)
• Lil Pudgy (796 ETH, 1.87 ETH)
• DeGods (795 ETH, 2.94 ETH)
• Azuki (731 ETH, 6.48 ETH)
• MAYC (591 ETH, 4.21 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Wonky Stonks (51%, 0.2 ETH Floor)
• Killa Bears (44%, 1.73 ETH)
• Pandora (43%, 9.73 ETH)
• Killabits (35%, 0.24 ETH)
• Quirkies (18%, 1.75 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is a slower day of drops but with 1 major highlight.

"Flares" mint today on BTC (trygamma's platform) from the Quantum Cats artist FAR. Flares will be a 512 piece Dutch auction, starting at 0.1 BTC and dropping by 0.005 every 5 mins with no resting price.

The animated collection of extra terrestrial worlds are likely to see major demand given the early success of the cats (and early reactions to the art).

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Laura El x Avant Arte - Park Ave (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Bits (1:00 p.m. ET)
• Sotheby's Ether Rock auction (6:00 p.m. ET)
• Flares by FAR (7:30 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com