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First Mover Americas: Investors Pull Coins From Bitcoin Funds
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for March 16, 2023.
Updated Mar 16, 2023, 2:12 p.m. Published Mar 16, 2023, 12:28 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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Bitcoin funds are bleeding coins even as U.S. bank failures fuel expectations of an early Federal Reserve pivot in favor of liquidity easing. Usually, if the Fed doesn't raise rates aggressively like it has been doing, risky assets like bitcoin benefit, but the opposite is occurring with the bitcoin funds. Data tracked by ByteTree Asset Management shows the number of coins held by close-ended funds, spot and futures-focused exchange-traded funds in Europe, the U.S. and Canada has declined by 16,560 BTC ($409 million) this month, reaching a 17-month low of 826,113 BTC. ETFs and other investment vehicles that allow taking exposure to bitcoin without having to own the cryptocurrency are widely considered a proxy for institutional activity.
Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX transferred $2.2 billion to founder Sam Bankman-Fried through various entities, the firm's new management said. A total of $3.2 billion was paid to Bankman-Fried and other key employees, according to a financial report filed Wednesday. The next largest beneficiary after Bankman-Fried was Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, who received about $587 million. In February, Singh pleaded guilty to charges including fraud and conspiracy for his role in FTX’s collapse. The payments were made predominantly from the Bankman-Fried-owned trading firm Alameda Research, whose precarious finances set the wheels in motion for FTX's collapse in November.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler is doubling down on his opinion that proof-of-stake tokens could meet the definition of securities under the Howey Test, thus bringing them under his agency’s regulatory authority. Speaking to reporters after a commission vote on Wednesday, Gensler said securities laws could be triggered because investors anticipate a return when they purchase tokens underpinned by a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The Block first reported the news.
Chart of the Day
- The chart by CryptoCompare shows that bitcoin's 1% market depth for BTC/USD pair or collection of buy and sell offers is within 1% of the mid-price or the average of the bid and the ask/offer prices.
- The market depth tanked to fresh multi-month lows over the weekend after USDC lost its dollar peg, making it harder for traders to execute large orders at stable prices.
- "Coinbase’s BTC-USD liquidity (which is a unified market for USD and USDC on Coinbase) saw a sharp decline of its 1% market depth which was more severe than when FTX collapsed. 1% market depth fell from 846 BTC on the 10th to 417 BTC on the 11th, a 50.7% decline," CryptoCompare said in a report on Tuesday.
- Deterioration in liquidity, as measured by market depth, means a few big orders can trigger outsized price moves in either direction.
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Strategy shares register first six-month losing streak since adoption of bitcoin strategy in 2020
Crypto analyst Chris Millas has highlighted an unusually persistent slump in Strategy shares, breaking with past drawdown patterns even as the firm continued accumulating bitcoin.
What to know:
- Strategy shares fell in each of the final six months of 2025, marking the first time since the firm adopted bitcoin in August 2020 as a treasury reserve asset.
- The decline stands out for its persistence, as past selloffs were often followed by sharp rebounds.
- The stock sharply underperformed both bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 despite the firm's continued BTC purchases.
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