Daily News | Bitcoin Breaks $57,000; Blast 2.29 Mainnet Launches; Saudi Arabian Government Launches Cultural Metaverse Celebrates Founding of Its Nation

Crypto Daily Digest: BTC breaks through $57,000 in the short term, Blast announces the mainnet launch time, Saudi Arabia launches a “cultural” metaverse to celebrate its founding anniversary

Let’s take a look at the trading activity of Bitcoin ETFs. On February 26, Grayscale’s GBTC fund outflow continued to slow down, reaching $22.4 million, continuing to create the lowest outflow record; The entire ETF fund group continues to attract huge trading volume and rapid growth in managed assets. Meanwhile, Fidelity Bitcoin spot ETF (FBTC) inflow of $243.3 million, Bitwise Bitcoin spot ETF inflow of $37 million yesterday, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin spot ETF (ARKB) inflow of $130.6 million yesterday, and WisdomTree Bitcoin spot ETF (BTCW) net inflow of $900,000.

As of the time of writing, Bitcoin had reached a peak of $57,055, climbing 10.1% within 24 hours, and its market value had risen to $1.10 trillion, with a clear bullish trend. The value of Bitcoin relative to the US dollar has never reached such a level since November 22, 2021, which is also the 12th day after digital currencies reached their peak of $69,000. The total valuation of the entire crypto market climbed 6% throughout the day, reaching $2.12 trillion.

Last week, the market experienced some sideways and consolidation periods with unstable trading volume, but during the trading period on Monday (February 26), there was a significant increase in trading volume. The exchange rate of Bitcoin against the US dollar has risen by 10.1% within 24 hours, with a weekly and monthly growth of 34%.

On February 27, Blast officially announced on the X platform that its mainnet will be launched on February 29.

The Blast protocol was launched in mid-November as a scalability solution to the Ethereum network, providing native benefits of Ethereum (ETH) and stablecoin to users who invest funds in the protocol. At present, according to DefiLlama’s data, Blast TVL has exceeded 2.1 billion, an increase of over 2200% compared to its bridge protocol, first launched on November 22, with a user base of over 150,000.

In mid-January, Blast officially launched the testing website and opened the registration window for the BIG BANG competition to developers. In the end, over 3000 teams signed up to compete for potential token airdrop rewards and VC exposure opportunities. In this round of BIG BANG, a total of 118 potential projects were screened, including 47 winning projects (Winners), 31 runner-up projects (Runner Us), and 40 honorific projects (Honorables).

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture launched a metaverse on the anniversary of its founding, dedicated to showcasing and protecting the country’s cultural heritage. The Cultural Universe is scheduled to be launched on February 22, leading users to review Saudi Arabia’s long history dating back to 1727. This metaverse is built on Oracle’s Hyperledger Fabric 2.5 blockchain technology and developed by DroppGroup’s Generative Media Intelligence (AI) , DroppPhysical.

The virtual world uses first-person shooting to help users browse the metaverse. Users can freely walk along a common path with other users and explore the information provided on both sides of the path. Approaching the virtual representative of a historical event will trigger voice audio to explain the event in detail. However, the voice is limited to Arabic, and there is no English version. It also includes other sections related to Saudi heritage, such as music, art, history, cuisine, handicrafts, and mini video games. This free service can be accessed through websites, mobile phones, virtual reality helmets, and other supported digital devices.

Samuel Huber, CEO of LandVault, a metaverse company that collaborates with various government agencies in the Middle East, said that Saudi Arabia, like other Middle Eastern countries, has passed the era of metaverse hype and is using this technology to promote economic development. He believes that, like blockchain and artificial intelligence, the metaverse is also one of the “pillars” of economic growth in the Middle East.

Macro: The Fed’s March interest rates will likely remain unchanged, and the market is waiting to observe core data. Gold and crude oil prices remain stable

On the Federal Reserve’s side, the probability of maintaining interest rates in the 5.25% -5.50% range in March is 97.5%, and the likelihood of a 25 basis point rate cut is 2.5%.

On February 26, Reuters reported that Jeffrey Schmid, President of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, stated in his first policy speech on Monday that he remains concerned about the threat of high inflation and is not in a hurry to cut interest rates.

In August last year, Schmid said in his first widely public speech since taking office, “In a situation where inflation rates are above the target, the labor market is tight, and demand is showing considerable momentum, my personal opinion is that there is no need to preemptively adjust policy positions.” On the contrary, we believe the best course of action is to remain patient, observe how the economy responds to policy tightening that has already occurred, and wait for convincing evidence that the war on inflation has been won.”

Meanwhile, he believes that the interruption of Red Sea shipping may bring new upward pressure to commodity prices, and the warming of consumer price inflation in January exceeded expectations, requiring a cautious attitude towards further deflation expectations. It may be necessary to slow down demand further to suppress price and wage pressures.

Presently, this attitude corresponds to other policymakers of the Federal Reserve, who hope to maintain policy interest rates within the current range of 5.25% -5.5% until they can see a decrease in the inflation rate and move towards the target of 2%. The inflation data for both the United States and the European Union will be released this week.

Concerns over interest rates and massive bond auctions ($127 billion on Tuesday and $42 billion on Wednesday) have put pressure on US Treasury bonds, but Asian morning yields have stabilized. The yield of 10-year US Treasury bonds fell two basis points to 4.27%. The two-year government bond yield (US2YT=RR) fell four basis points to 4.70%.

The market expects that the time for the Federal Reserve to relax its policy for the first time has been postponed from May to June, and the current expectation is that the likelihood of a rate cut in June is about 70%. The futures market suggests that there will be slightly more than 75 basis points of interest rate cuts this year, compared to an estimated 125 basis points at the beginning of the month.

In terms of geopolitics, US President Biden has expressed his hope that the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza can begin a ceasefire following Monday, as the warring parties seem close to reaching an agreement.

Brent crude oil futures remained within the recent range, rising 0.2% or $0.16 to $82.69 per barrel.

Regarding gold prices, they remained stable on Tuesday as investors waited for key US inflation data to be released later this week, which may provide more information on how quickly the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates. Spot gold remained stable at $2031.03 per ounce; US futures rose 0.1% to $2040.5 per ounce.

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond fell from 4.2990% on Monday to 4.2775%, adding to the attractiveness of interest-free asset gold.