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Plunging U.S. Stocks Help Add to Crypto's Bad Day
The week's uptrend was quickly upended by the hack at crypto exchange Bybit.
Feb 21, 2025, 8:35 p.m.
What to know:
- Early gains in cryptos and crypto-related stocks first took a hit from the $1.5 billion Bybit hack
- A quick retreat in U.S. stocks in later in the day pressured crypto even further.
- Among news items hitting stocks was a poor read on consumer sentiment and a report on a new coronavirus discovered in China.
Only a handful of hours ago crypto markets were buoyed as the Securities and Exchange Commission signaled its intent its dismiss a lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN).
The welcome regulatory news sparked 5% gains for COIN and the likes of increasingly important crypto trading platform Robinhood (HOOD), and sent bitcoin breaking out of its recent tight trading range to within sight of the $100,000 level.
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The first bomb to break the good vibes came late in the U.S. morning when Bybit was stung by about a $1.5 billion hack — the largest such exploit ever in crypto. That news sent bitcoin and ether sliding roughly 2% in a manner of minutes.
Prices quickly seemed to stabilize and — at least in the case for bitcoin — bounce a bit.
Et tu stocks?
Any sort of bounce, however, was quickly snuffed out as modest losses for U.S. stocks began to accelerate in afternoon trading.
Among the excuses for the quick retreat was a poor reading from the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, which unexpectedly slipped to 64.7 versus forecasts for 67.8. The same survey's inflation expectations rose to 3.5% against an expected 3.3%.
An outlier, but perhaps also a reason for selling, was a new coronavirus scare out of China. Discovered by researchers at the Wuhan Institute, HKU5-CoV-2 is "strikingly similar" to the virus that caused the 2020 pandemic, according to the Daily Mail.
Shortly before the close of trading on Friday, the Nasdaq is lower by 2.2% and the S&P 500 by 1.7%. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has fallen nine basis points to 4.42%.
As for crypto, bitcoin has more than erased its gains of the past couple of days, trading back to $95,000 and lower by nearly 4% over the past 24 hours. Ether has pulled back to $2,650, also lower by about 4%. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index is down 4.4%.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
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