By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

There’s a note of caution seeping into crypto markets, with bitcoin

sliding under $115,000 and ether (ETH) falling to $4,220 ahead of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium later this week. The CoinDesk 20 Index, a measure of the biggest tokens, has dropped more than 4.5% in the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s drop took the largest cryptocurrency to below it’s 50-day simple moving average (SMA) and marks quite a retrenchment from the record high of $124,000 it registered last week. In ether’s case, on-chain data indicates a risk of massive 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 said in a market update. “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 faced a record validator exit queue, with 855,158 tokens worth over $3.5 billion looking to leave. Furthermore, last week, BlackRock’s ether ETF (ETHA) registered a record trading volume of 364.25 million shares, according to data source TradingView. The fund also registered record 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 exchange Coinstash, said.

Speaking of the broader market, the bitcoin-to-altcoin liquidations ratio continued to slide, reaching its lowest point since early 2024, according to data source CryptoQuant. (See Chart of the Day.) The drop shows altcoins have been experiencing more speculative activity relative to bitcoin, a dynamic often observed at market tops.

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

In traditional markets, gold rose, European stocks dropped and U.S. stock index futures were muted as traders awaited a key meeting 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 fastest blockchain ever recorded, will undergo its first yearly halving event as part of a controlled emission model. Although gross emissions remain fixed at one trillion QUBIC tokens per week, the adaptive burn rate will increase substantially — burning some 28.75 trillion tokens and reducing net effective emissions to about 21.25 trillion tokens.
• Macro
  • Aug. 18, 1 p.m. ET: President Donald Trump will greet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, followed by a bilateral meeting. European leaders will join for a multilateral meeting including Zelensky starting at 3 p.m.
  • Aug. 18, 6 p.m.: The Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador releases July producer price inflation data.
  • Aug. 19, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases July consumer price inflation data.
    • 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 speak on “Fostering New Technology in the Banking System” at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025. Watch live.
  • Aug. 19, 4 p.m.: The Central Bank of Uruguay announces its monetary policy decision.
    • Monetary Policy Rate Prev. 9%
  • Aug. 20, 11 a.m.: Fed Governor Christopher J. Waller will speak on “Payments” at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025. Watch live.
  • Aug. 20, 2 p.m.: The Fed will release the FOMC minutes from the July 29-30 meeting.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • 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 aimed at boosting top-tier crypto research through competitions and incentives, improving content 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 top delegates, with up to $6,000 a month based on voting activity, community 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 corporate membership (logo on sponsor wall, team access, newsletter feature, 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 supply worth $91.6 million.
  • Aug. 20: LayerZero to unlock 8.53% of its circulating supply worth $57.59 million.
  • Aug. 20: Kaito (KAITO) to unlock 8.82% of its circulating supply worth $27.55 million.
• Token Launches
  • OPENPAD TOKEN (OPAD) lists on KuCoin
  • Backroom (ROOM) lists on LBank

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation conference (formerly known as State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique event held in Washington on Sept. 10 that allows general counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to meet with public officials responsible for crypto legislation and regulatory oversight. Space is limited. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration through Aug. 31.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Solana’s on-chain liquidations exceeded wipeouts at centralized exchanges during the weekend slump, with $37.4 million of SOL flushed on the blockchain versus $20.9 million on CEXs. Drift and Hyperliquid carried most of the flow, showing how much perp activity has migrated on-chain.
• Hyperliquid OI in SOL hit a record $1.2 billion even as Binance volumes slipped. Total OI is back near $5 billion, with whales split: 59 wallets long, 70 short. One standout, “White Whale,” holds a $79 million 20x leveraged long now sitting $1.22 million in the red.
• Ecosystem fees are back above $1 million a day as Jupiter, Jito and Kamino see fresh inflows. Stablecoins on Solana have crossed $12 billion, with nearly half of new capital migrating in from Ethereum.
• A Shiba inu whale shifted 3 trillion SHIB (~$38 million) off Coinbase Institutional into cold storage on Aug. 15, signaling conviction over trading. The wallet had no prior history.
• The move coincided with SHIB’s burn rate jumping nearly 2,000% in 24 hours, with 4.7 million tokens destroyed. Supply compression remains a key narrative for the community.
• Developers are prepping cross-chain expansion to Base and Solana using Chainlink CCIP alongside a new dev hub and DEX to deepen liquidity. Price action is steady near $0.000013, with technicals pointing to a slow grind higher.

Derivatives Positioning

• Bitcoin’s price decline since Friday is marked by a steady increase in futures open interest (OI), which has surged to 720,000 BTC, the most since Aug. 2.
• At the same time, positive funding rates are fading, indicating that bearish short positions are gaining momentum in the market.
• The same can be said for the ether market, where open interest has increased to 14.34 million ETH, also the highest since Aug. 2.
• OI in LINK, which has bucked the broader market weakness, reached a record high 68.13 million LINK, alongside annualized funding rates of around 10%. The combination points to investor interest in chasing price gains.
• On the CME, open interest in Solana futures hovers at a record high of over 4.6 million SOL. However, the annualized three-month premium has declined sharply to 15% from 35% last week. The premium for BTC and ETH remains locked near 10%.
• Open interest in CME bitcoin futures remains well below July highs, pointing to low participation from institutional traders. The OI here has continued to print lower highs since December, diverging bearishly from the new highs in the spot price.
• On Deribit, risk reversals out to November expiry showed a bias for put options as the spot price drop spurred demand for downside protection. In ETH’s case, bearishness was pronounced at the short-end.
• Block flows featured a giant short strangle, involving writing of $4.4K puts and $4.7K calls. The trader collected a premium of $680,000, betting on a rangeplay between $4,040 and $5,020.
• In BTC’s case, a trader picked up the Sept. 25 expiry put option at $110,000, anticipating a price 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 rate 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 rate 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 moving average): 957 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $56.04
• Total fees: 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 shows dollar index’s (DXY) weekly price action in the candlesticks format.
• The DXY has failed to penetrate the former support-turned-resistance at 99.58.
• The repeated bull failure suggests that selling pressure is quite strong and the index could suffer 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 net flows: -$14.13 million
• Cumulative net flows: $54.97 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$59.34 million
• Cumulative net 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 shows that an increasing number of traders have been speculating in the altcoin market, leading to the forced closure of positions on adverse price 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 visit aims to safeguard NATO cohesion and Ukraine’s sovereignty after Trump dropped a ceasefire-first stance, fueling fears he could pressure 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 below put $236 million at risk, with analysts warning cascading liquidations could snowball into as much as $5 billion in forced selling.
• Metaplanet Expands Bitcoin Treasury by 775 BTC, Assets Outweigh Debt 18-Fold (CoinDesk): The purchase, made at an average price of 17.72 million yen ($120,500) per bitcoin, lifts the company’s total holdings to 18,888 BTC, worth 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 firm, will register as a money transfer operator this month to issue a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the yen and backed by bank deposits and Japanese government 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 3.16% 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, bank sanctions and cartel allegations against senior officials are pressuring President Claudia Sheinbaum as she navigates U.S. demands and protectionist policies inherited from former president López Obrador.

In the Ether