Ground forces have entered Ukrainian territory and multiple airstrikes are reported nationwide

Russia has launched a comprehensive invasion against Ukraine, with the scale of conflict rapidly escalating. Any hopes for a diplomatic solution have been dashed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine.

The situation will likely continue to deteriorate over the course of the day, but here’s how global markets are digesting the news.

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Market update

Bitcoin (BTC) has plunged alongside world markets in response to Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. As a result, Bitcoin fell 7.52% to 34.2k and looks to test the lows from last month.

 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/v7j9tiND

USDT Dominance (USDT.D) nears all-time highs at 5.16% as traders begin to exit positions into stable assets such as USDT/USDC/UST.

https://www.tradingview.com/chart/v7j9tiND/

Bitcoin Max Pain (the price where most options contracts expire causes financial losses for holders), on March 24^th expiry, continues to hold at 42k. The spot price tends to attract towards Max Pain the closer to expiration. Options traders continue to lean to the upside with a put/call ratio of 0.63.

However, in light of fast-deteriorating global events, we do not necessarily expect this to play out. There are greater forces determining market movements than options expiries.

https://www.coinoptionstrack.com/options/BTC/open-interest

UST continues to hold the $1.00 peg despite market conditions. Furthermore, UST price stability alleviates any de-pegging concerns of the decentralized algorithmic stablecoin during panic selling.

https://www.coingecko.com/

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index: 23 Extreme Fear (+2)

Bitcoin “Google” Trends: 40 (-3)

Bitcoin “Crypto” Trends: 28 (-4)

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Major crypto news

The news cycle is dominated by the spiraling situation in Ukraine, and rightly so. Everything else is of secondary concern today. Nonetheless, here’s what has been going on in the background:

• Concerns over market reactions to the Russian invasion raise discussions of qualitative easing reversals from the Federal Reserve (Fed).

Tonight we are taking a big step closer to the US Fed being forced to reverse course and accelerate QE into a commodity spike given world events in the context of the worst US fiscal situation in 80+ years.

Let’s watch.

— Luke Gromen (@LukeGromen) February 24, 2022

• Kazakhstan shuts down 13 illegal crypto mining farms after vowing to crack down on illicit mining activity that causes harm to the power grid.

NEW: Kazakhstan terminates 13 #bitcoin mining farms 💀

— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDailyio) February 24, 2022

• To improve Anchor Protocol (ANC) tokenomics and increase demand, Arca has posted a proposal to add further utility to ANC tokens.

1/ Arca has posted a governance proposal to add much-needed utility to $ANC. Anchor, Terra, & UST are some of the fastest-growing protocols, but ANC has underperformed the broader sector. ANC lacks utility and is heavily incentivizing $Luna rather than $ANC

Thread below

— Jeff Dorman, CFA (@jdorman81) February 24, 2022

• Kookmin Bank, the largest bank in South Korea, plans to study and launch crypto ETFs and derivative products.

• OpenSea competitor X2Y2 has air-dropped native tokens (X2Y2). In addition, X2Y2 plans on rewarding users that list NFTs on the platform.

• Coinbase has launched a feature that supports Ledger hardware on the exchange’s user wallets.

• Layer-2 scaling solution StarkNet has announced the deployment of its first decentralized applications (dApps) on the network.

Banter’s take

This is a tragedy, and likely to escalate in the coming days. Be sure to tune into the shows today for our take on what the horrendous circumstances mean for our community and the markets as a whole.