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Bitcoin has fallen 41%, Ethereum 45%, and altcoins 80% since Donald Trump’s second administration took office as U.S. president, while silver has gained 123%, gold 65%, and the Nasdaq, Russell 2000 and S&P 500 have risen 42%, 35% and 30%, respectively, crypto trading and investment firm Rand Group said on X.

South Korea’s Korea Communications Standards Commission has decided to block access to prediction-betting site Polymarket, according to MBN. The commission made the decision at a telecommunications review subcommittee meeting today. It determined that Polymarket promotes speculative gambling because it uses a winner-takes-all profit and loss structure in which users’ financial gains or losses depend on the outcomes of events beyond their control, including politics, the economy, and the weather. The commission also considered that the operator manages market creation and trading rules, provides a cryptocurrency settlement system, and collects fee revenue, as well as opinions submitted during the prior review process by related agencies including the Korean National Police Agency that the service could fall under gambling offenses.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced on its website that it will temporarily suspend MED deposits and withdrawals at 2:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 20 for the MediBloc network upgrade.

BTC perp long/short ratios on top exchanges by open interest The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 51.72% long, 48.28% short - Binance: 52.59% long, 47.41% short - OKX: 51.49% long, 48.51% short - Bybit: 52.92% long, 47.08% short

BTC spot CVD chart as of 3:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 18 The spot CVD chart is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper panel shows a Volume Heatmap, while the lower panel represents cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The upper Volume Heatmap tracks trading volume by price range. The background color becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or moves sharply. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance levels. - The lower CVD indicator shows buy and sell orders by capital size, and the line for each color rises as buy orders increase. The yellow line reflects orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line reflects large orders between $1 million and $10 million.

Five of eight chart analysts partnered with CoinNess expect Bitcoin to rise this week, while three forecast a decline. Their target prices range from a high of $70,000 to a low of $57,200. Vote through the link for the outlook and target price closest to your own view. We will give coffee coupons to 100 selected participants through a drawing.

South Korean exchange Upbit announced it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals for cryptocurrencies on the Polygon network starting at 11:00 a.m. UTC today due to a Polygon (POL) network hard fork. As a result, Polygon-network deposits and withdrawals for cryptocurrencies including POL and GMT will be temporarily halted from that time.

Aster announced a perpetual futures trading competition tied to three private company contracts, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Unitree, with a total prize pool of $10,000 in ASTER. The event runs from 4:00 a.m. UTC today through 11:59 p.m. UTC on Aug. 24, covering the UNITREE/USDT, ANTHROPIC/USDT, and OPENAI/USDT trading pairs. Prize money is split evenly between trading volume and realized PnL, with $5,000 allocated to each category. Rankings in both categories will be based on combined trading results across all three products, and users can win in both categories. In each category, first place will receive $2,000, second place $1,000, and third place $300. Traders ranked fourth through 10th will each receive $100, while those ranked 11th through 30th will each receive $50. To qualify, participants must keep their accounts set to public and record at least $5,000 in total trading volume across the three products during the event period. In the realized PnL category, only users with positive realized PnL will be included in the rankings.

Bank of America cut its holdings of Strategy (MSTR) stock by about 70% in the second quarter, reducing the position to 1.18 million shares as of June 30 from about 3.97 million shares at the end of the first quarter, according to the bank’s second-quarter 13F filing. In contrast, its holdings of BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF, ETHA, rose about 29-fold to 1.98 million shares from about 67,500 shares. The reported value of the ETHA stake stood at about $23.6 million at the end of the second quarter.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it will temporarily suspend HBAR deposits and withdrawals at 10:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 19.

10x Research said Bitcoin’s current price zone around $63,000 is a key range that will determine whether the asset forms a bottom or faces another sharp drop. Bitcoin traded sideways around $60,000 for about six months ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, then climbed quickly from $70,000 to $90,000 after Donald Trump’s election victory was confirmed. 10x Research said trading volume in the $70,000-$90,000 range was light at the time, leaving limited support on the way down, and had previously warned that a break below $93,000 in November 2025 could trigger a sharp fall toward $65,000. BTC is now moving sideways in the $60,000 range again for an extended period, but 10x Research said trading volume and holder distribution in that range have changed significantly from the earlier period. The firm said those changes are likely to be the key factor in BTC’s next directional move.

Pharos Network (PROS), a layer-one blockchain focused on real-world asset tokenization and AI, announced the addition of PGNGI+, a product tied to global private infrastructure investments through on-chain asset protocol Asseto Finance. The launch marks the first on-chain product linked to global private infrastructure investments to be added to the Pharos RealFi ecosystem. PGNGI+ is based on interests related to next-generation infrastructure funds managed by global private asset manager Partners Group. With the launch, the range of institutional-grade real-world assets offered by Pharos has expanded from cash management and credit assets to infrastructure income rights, opening a new investment channel for on-chain investors to gain exposure to value growth in large global infrastructure projects.

If BTC falls below $60,941, about $1.265 billion in long positions on major exchanges will be liquidated, while a move above $67,145 would trigger liquidations of roughly $970 million in short positions, according to CoinGlass.

Tokenized stocks have expanded their share of the real-world asset market to 15%, tripling from the start of the year, with market capitalization reaching about $2.8 billion, The Block reported. In the tokenized stock market, Ondo Finance (ONDO), Binance’s bStocks and Kraken unit xStocks account for 77% of the total market, with market capitalizations of $957 million, $622 million and $600 million, respectively. Meanwhile, RWA transfer volume rose from $9 billion in July to $20 billion in August, more than doubling in a month.

Brevan Howard cut its holdings of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT by about 70.4% in the second quarter, reducing its position to 7.21 million shares from 24.3 million, Foresight News reported, citing an SEC 13F filing. Graham Capital also reduced its IBIT holdings by about 72% over the same period, to 259,000 shares from 926,000.

Fundstrat said Bitcoin’s volatility is nearing a record low, suggesting BTC could see a price move of around 30% in either direction over the next two months. According to CNBC, Fundstrat Head of Digital Asset Strategy Sean Farrell said in a client note on Aug. 17 that in past periods with similarly low volatility, the median absolute price move over the following 60 days was about 30%. Farrell said the direction was unclear, but the scale of the next move could be significant. In eight such cases, four ended higher and four ended lower. On BTC’s recent rebound, Farrell said much of the move appears to have been driven by short liquidations. BTC perpetual futures open interest fell about 8% while the price rose after Aug. 14, according to the note. Farrell added that in June and early July, short covering also temporarily pushed prices higher, but those gains were later erased, and he presented a similar pattern as the base-case scenario this time. As a risk factor, Farrell pointed to rising long-term real interest rates, saying they could trigger BTC to break out of its current narrow trading range.

Binance announced it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals on the Conflux network for CFX starting at 11:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 24, in line with the network’s upgrade and hard fork.

24-hour crypto futures liquidations The following shows estimated liquidation volumes and position ratios for major crypto perpetual futures over the past 24 hours: - BTC: $80.62 million liquidated (94.6% shorts) - ETH: $20.37 million liquidated (58.58% shorts) - SNDK: $20.14 million liquidated (65.63% shorts)

A whale address beginning with GvHYQQ, dormant for about two years, bought 47,535 SOL worth $3.6 million, according to Lookonchain. The whale had previously bought a total of 291,790 SOL at an average price of $23.37 during SOL declines in August and October 2023, then sold 191,789 SOL at an average of $128.36 during the rally, realizing more than $20 million in profit.

Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho, who was sentenced in the first trial to 15 years in prison on fraud charges tied to around 70 billion won in digital assets, has appealed the ruling, Digital Asset reported. According to the South Korean Supreme Court’s case search system on Aug. 16, Jeong’s legal counsel filed a notice of appeal with the Seoul Southern District Court on Aug. 14. Delio, a digital-asset deposit platform, abruptly suspended withdrawals in June 2023, leaving many victims and triggering a broader public backlash. Jeong was later indicted on charges including fraud, and the first-trial ruling came two years and three months later. The appeal is expected to further delay a final court decision. The 11th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court, presided over by Judge Jang Chan, sentenced Jeong to 15 years in prison and remanded him into custody on Aug. 13. The court said Delio had excessively promoted the company with rhetoric stressing stability, including references to a crypto bank, while consistently shifting blame to other companies and avoiding responsibility.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said automated market makers could gain a competitive edge over traditional market makers as asset tokenization expands. In a post on X, Adams said tokenized assets can trade directly not only against the dollar but also against assets with similar price movements. Grouping highly correlated assets in this way reduces price volatility risk for liquidity providers, which in turn lowers the cost of supplying liquidity through AMMs, Adams said. By contrast, traditional market makers must bear separate hedging costs to reduce price volatility risk, Adams added. He added that as tokenization expands, liquidity is likely to concentrate in these correlated pairs, making it easier for AMMs to compete with traditional market makers.

Harvard Management Company, which manages Harvard University’s endowment, kept its holdings of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT unchanged at 3,044,612 shares in the second quarter, Nada News reported, citing a U.S. SEC 13F filing. According to the report, HMC cut its IBIT holdings by 21% in the fourth quarter of last year and by 43% in the first quarter of this year, but did not make additional sales in the second quarter.

Ripple has signed a strategic partnership with South Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank, a unit of JB Financial Group, to help build a next-generation digital finance ecosystem, the company said. Ripple said Fiona Murray, managing director for APAC at Ripple, other senior Ripple executives, Jeonbuk Bank President Park Chun-won, and other bank executives attended the signing ceremony. Through the partnership, the two sides plan broad cooperation on key initiatives including the introduction of an innovative cross-border payments system, as traditional finance boundaries blur and digital assets move into the regulatory fold.

Traditional finance exchanges are following the crypto market’s playbook whether they like it or not, Nate Geraci, CEO of wealth manager Novadius Wealth Management, said on X, commenting on Nasdaq’s plan to extend U.S. stock trading hours to 23 hours a day, five days a week starting in December.

U.S. crypto mining company Riot Platforms (Nasdaq: RIOT) sold 9,665 BTC in the first half of this year at an average price of $75,785, Lookonchain reported. According to Arkham data, Riot also deposited 200 BTC worth $12.86 million with crypto lender New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) 11 hours ago.