It's the Dip That Keeps on Dipping. Bitcoin Falls Below $80,000

Bitcoin took another hit early Friday, falling below $80,000 and taking February's decline to over 20%. That spurred a bloodbath in the broader crypto market

It's the dip that keeps on dipping. Bitcoin took another hit early Friday, falling below $80,000 and falling over 20% for February. And that sparked a bloodbath in the broader crypto market, with ether sliding below $2,100, a level it last saw in August.

Increased volatility in cryptocurrencies mirrors trends in traditional markets. Compare the 10% jump in the Volmex BVIV, which tracks the 30-day implied volatility in bitcoin, with the equal increase in the MOVE index, which measures the implied volatility of U.S. Treasury notes. The VIX, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, has risen by 14%.

These movements, coupled with a sell-off in growth-sensitive commodity currencies like the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars, are indicative of jitters in the macroeconomy, primarily driven by renewed concerns over potential Trump tariffs, prompting a rotation towards less volatile assets.

"U.S. domestic policies have become unstable, and the White House seems happy to take advantage of this instability," said Griffin Ardern, head of options trading and research at crypto financial platform BloFin. "Given the challenges investors face in obtaining accurate forward-looking guidance, many are more inclined to hold low-volatility assets ... Traders need to liquidate positions to reduce their exposure to specific assets before transitioning to other markets, which explains the decline across almost all asset classes, including cryptocurrencies."

Volatility looks set to remain heightened, with President Donald Trump reportedly scheduled to speak later on Friday. In the meantime, those hoping for a significant rebound in risk assets based on personal consumption data may be disappointed because anticipated soft readings could be overshadowed by tariff concerns and rising forward-looking inflation metrics.

But there were more positive developments on the regulatory front this week, with the SEC dropping charges against Uniswap, one of the leading decentralized exchanges, and mulling the same regarding its issues with Consensys.

As Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of leading market maker Wintermute, pointed out at Consensus Hong Kong last week, many are overlooking the evolving attitude of the SEC, and this is a factor the market has yet to fully price in.

Plus, the decline in the basis in the CME bitcoin and ether futures, a sign of weakening demand, has stalled and from a technical analysis perspective, bitcoin is fast closing toward a potential demand zone. So, stay alert!

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By Shaurya Malwa

ALERT: LAZARUS LAUNDERING THROUGH THORCHAIN - MINIMUM $240M SO FAROver $240M of ETH has been sent through Thorchain by Lazarus-tagged wallets according to Arkham.These funds have mainly been swapped for native BTC.

As the dust settles on the recent crypto market crash, new data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham reveals a massive money laundering operation unfolding in plain sight. According to Arkham, Lazarus-tagged wallets, notorious for their involvement in malicious activities, have been actively transferring enormous sums of ether through the Thorchain protocol.

In a series of tweets, Arkham highlights how these Lazarus wallets, linked to North Korea's cybercrime activities, systematically sent billions of won in KICP (the native token of the Korean cryptocurrency exchange) to ether and then utilized the Thorchain protocol to swap the ETH for BTC.

"The AML [anti-money laundering] implications of this are significant. It appears that Lazarus is able to easily and quickly launder large amounts of crypto by leveraging DeFi protocols like Thorchain," stated Arkham.

The scale of the operation is staggering. According to Arkham's analysis, at least $240 million in ETH has been laundered through Thorchain so far, with the true figure potentially even higher.

The majority of the laundered funds were later used to purchase bitcoin on the decentralized exchange protocol, highlighting the Lazarus group's preference for the flagship cryptocurrency.

The operation began in February 2023, with the KICP tokens being transferred to a specific address on the Huobi exchange. From there, the tokens were sold for USDT, which was subsequently used to purchase ether on FTX.

The stolen funds were then moved to a new wallet, eventually reaching a Lazarus-tagged address on March 9. After March 9, the same batch of ETH tokens was used to perform several swaps on Thorchain, enabling the seamless conversion of ether to bitcoin.

Derivatives Positioning

The aggregate bitcoin notional value across major centralized exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and Huobi fell by 9% over the past 24 hours to $97 billion, compared with a 7% increase in the aggregate ether notional value to $80 billion, according to CCData.

The total notional value across all 10 cryptocurrencies followed by CCData also dropped by 6% to $147 billion, with bitcoin and ether