Investors in the crypto industry have had a tumultuous start to the year due to increased regulatory scrutiny and mixed economic indicators. However, recent news suggests a shift in sentiment.

An example would be Abu Dhabi’s decision to establish a welcoming regulatory environment for the crypto industry, or similarly, France’s plan to implement simplified licensing regulations related to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) protocols for cryptocurrency companies are seen as a positive development.

The bearish momentum was also reduced after Visa corrected some details in a recent Reuters report, which at first suggested that VISA (but also Mastercard) were slowing their crypto push. Visa’s crypto head, Cuy Sheffield, said that the company would continue to partner with crypto firms “despite the challenges and uncertainty in the crypto ecosystem.”

Another positive catalyst was upbeat in China manufacturing data, which alleviated global growth concerns and improved risk appetite in global financial markets. China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 52.6 in February, the fastest in over a decade, following January’s 50.1. The positive news boosted risk assets like Bitcoin and stocks.

However, it’s worth noting that while Asian news seems to be leading the market strength, Asian investors’ interests may not be the same as their European and American counterparts. According to the Head of Markets Technology at crypto custodian Hex Trust David Cicoria, institutional clients in Asia have not been interested in liquid staking of assets due to fear of depegging, risk of hacks, centralization concerns, and lack of regulatory clarity.

According to The Block’s data, Deribit’s Bitcoin Volatility Index (DVOL) has dropped sharply from 60 to 50 over the course of the last week, not far above the record lows in January at 42 when the 2023 rally started to take off. The number indicates that investors can expect a short-term rally in the price of Bitcoin and the broader market in the near future.

Bitcoin (BTC) closed February with just a 0.03% gain, the smallest monthly upside recorded since 2013. Earlier today, it rose to as high as \(23,888 following the China hype, then retraced to around \)23,700 at the time of writing with a 1.06% daily increase.

The development of the Bitcoin network has been gaining traction these days as a new feature called “op_vault” was proposed, which would alert users when someone tries to steal their Bitcoin and then divert the funds to a more secure wallet.

Ethereum (ETH) tracked BTC closely with a 0.77% gain over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, the AI narrative didn’t appear to fade as the combined market cap of AI-related tokens reached $4B after seeing a $1.6B inflow in one month.

Top altcoin gainers and losers

Gainers:

Maker MKR (+17.37%)

SingularityNET AGIX (+16.26%)

Stacks STX (+13.59%)

Losers:

Klaytn KLAY (-6.48%)

Osmosis OSMO (-2.67%)

MultiversX EGLD (-2.57%)

NFT Market Map

Bored Ape Yacht Club (+89.28%) surpassed $1B in cumulated trading volume today ahead of major events in the Yuga Labs ecosystem, which could create positive impacts on Otherdeed (+39.26%) & 10KTF (+8.52%) as well.

CreateraGenesisLand (+3,317.90%) saw outstanding growth in volume after several NFTs were sold for 30 ETH per each on Blur.