According to a Bloomberg article on February 17, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) injected 632 billion yuan (approximately $92 billion) into the market through reverse repurchase contracts. The news came out before investors were notified of subtle support from the Chinese government for Hong Kong’s ambition of becoming a cryptocurrency hub.

Therefore, the crypto community is watching mainland China closely. If China softens its stance on crypto, as Hong Kong has, there could be a surge in crypto prices due to heightened liquidity.

Amid the positive sentiment as the Crypto Fear & Greed Index reached 60 from 53 just a week ago, a recent report by BIS found that the median retail investors lost about half their investment in Bitcoin between 2015 and 2022, despite the significant increase in price that occurred during that time.

Recent regulatory crackdowns in the U.S. caused outflows of \(32 million from digital asset investment products. Bitcoin was particularly affected, experiencing an outflow of \)24.8 million in the past week alone as per this CoinShares report.

Despite the turbulence, the total assets under management (AuM) in digital asset investment products have risen to $30 billion, marking the highest level since August 2022.

In the midst of this uncertainty, there are a few bright spots. Bitcoin’s blockchain has seen over 100,000 inscriptions stored immutably, highlighting a new and unexpected source of demand for blockspace, according to Glassnode data.

Bitcoin (BTC) made its second attempt to break \(25,000 today but was rejected and pulled back to \)24,600 to post a 0.69% daily drop.

Ethereum (ETH) has seen a decline of 1.65%, slipping further away from $1,700. Binance coin (BNB) was affected by the regulatory action against Binance USD (BUSD), with the BNB/BTC ratio listed on Binance reaching its lowest point since August 2022. It is trading at a 1.32% discount.

Polygon (MATIC) turned out to be the biggest loser among the top 10 cryptos today due to a 4.75% decrease. Meanwhile, with an 11.28% increase over the past 24 hours, Stacks (STX) became one of the top performers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies amid the Bitcoin NFT hype.

Top altcoin gainers and losers

Gainers:

• NEO NEO (+15.37%)
• SingularityNET AGIX (+14.24%)
• WEMIX WEMIX (+12.61%)

Losers:

• Klaytn KLAY (-13.45%)
• Lido DAO Token LDO (-8.35%)
• Filecoin FIL (-7.94%)

NFT Market Map

MechMinds (+0%) overcame all major competitors today to be the top NFT collection by volume traded. The project saw a 6.5x increase in its floor price, rising from 0.012 ETH to 0.078 ETH, in less than half a day.

As mentioned in our previous issue, Opepen Edition (+3,918.87%) went on to increase its trading volume amid the PFP hype while Blur Box Official (+0%) was quickly catching up.

Coin360 Daily Digest

Here’s a rundown of the major crypto market news from today.

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Disclaimer: None of the information here constitutes financial advice and market participants are advised to conduct their own research since cryptocurrencies are speculative assets with considerable risks.