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First Mover Americas: BTC Volatility Spikes, Crypto Derivatives Volume Surges
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for Feb. 29, 2024.
Updated Mar 9, 2024, 6:02 a.m. Published Feb 29, 2024, 1:00 p.m.
This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk's daily newsletter, putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
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The bitcoin bull is back, and so is price volatility. BTC traded 6.8% higher at $62,992 at press time, having printed highs near $64,000 on Wednesday. The price has gained 21% this week alone. The CoinDesk 20 Index, a broader market gauge, traded 7.5% higher at $2,326. The cryptocurrency's 30-day realized volatility, or the standard deviation of the last 30 days' daily percentage price change, has surged to an annualized 46% from 30% in a week. Activity in the crypto derivatives market has picked up. According to Swiss-based data tracked platform Laevitas, $374 billion worth of crypto futures, perpetual futures and options contracts have changed hands in the past 24 hours. That's the largest single-day tally since November 2021. Renewed demand for leveraged products, which magnify profits and losses, suggests an increase in risk appetite and the potential for sudden liquidations-induced price turbulence.
Bitcoin miners are selling more of their coins and running down their inventories in a rising market. Data tracked by Glassnode shows the estimated number of BTC held in wallets tied to miners has dropped by 8,426 BTC ($530 million) since the start of the year to 1,812,482 BTC. The decline began in the second half of October when miners held over 1.83 million BTC. The impending halving of miners' rewards and the ongoing dry season in China have catalyzed the sales, according to analysts at FRNT Financial.
Morgan Stanley is deciding whether to offer spot bitcoin ETFs to customers of its large brokerage platform, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted 11 spot bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 10. Since then, billions of dollars have poured into these products, known to closely track bitcoin’s price and allowing investors to take exposure to the cryptocurrency without owning it. Liquidity floodgates, however, would open once big registered investment adviser (RIA) networks and broker-dealer platforms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and others offer ETFs. Morgan Stanley, a leader in the alternative investments and private market space, has over $150 billion in assets under management and was the first major U.S. bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds in 2021.
Chart of the Day
- On Wednesday, trading volume on yield tokenization protocol Pendle Finance crossed above $100 million, a record high.
- Pendle allows traders to split yield-bearing instruments like staked ether into a yield token and a principal token and then offers a liquidity pool to trade these tokens.
- Source: Pendle
- Omkar Godbole
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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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Asia Morning Briefing: BTC Steadies Around 90k With Liquidity Drained and a Fed Cut Fully Priced In
QCP notes participation has collapsed while Polymarket sees a shallow easing path, putting the focus on guidance and cross central bank signals.
What to know:
- Bitcoin remains around $90,000 as thin year-end liquidity leads to volatility and range-bound trading.
- Traders expect a shallow easing path from the Fed, with more focus on guidance than the anticipated rate cut.
- Global market movements are influenced by diverging central bank policies and macroeconomic signals.
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