Trading time: Bitcoin supply gap appears in the 70,000-80,000 range, and FOMC interest rate decision becomes the market focus

1. Market observation

Keywords: FOMC, ETH, BTC

Yesterday, YZi Labs announced its investment in Plume Network, driving a rebound in the RWA sector. QCP Capital's latest analysis shows that despite the constant market noise, Bitcoin remains stable above $80,000, showing strong resilience. Standard Chartered Bank even said that if Trump's "crypto reserve" plan is successfully implemented in 2025, combined with the effect of halving the supply of Bitcoin, it may drive the price of Bitcoin to soar to $500,000.

Ki Young Ju, founder of CryptoQuant, believes that the Bitcoin bull cycle has ended and expects prices to show a bearish or sideways trend for 6-12 months, pointing out that every on-chain indicator indicates the arrival of a bear market. Joel Kruger, strategist at LMAX Group, is cautious about the market outlook, warning that global trade tensions and concerns about the slowdown in the US economy may lead to continued adjustments in US stocks, which in turn drags Bitcoin back to the $73,000-74,000 range. In contrast, David Duong, head of research at Coinbase Institutional, is relatively optimistic, believing that the current market sell-off is mainly affected by macro factors and liquidity, and the situation is expected to improve in the next quarter. He specifically pointed out that as bank reserve levels are close to the 10-11% range of GDP, the Federal Reserve may adjust the quantitative tightening (QT) program to maintain financial stability, which will provide support for asset prices.

From a technical perspective, Glassnode data shows that there is an obvious supply gap in the $70,000 to $80,000 range for Bitcoin, where trading hours are short, holdings are small, and support is weak. Currently, about 20% of Bitcoin supply is in a loss-making state, and the cost of holding is higher than the current price of $83,000. If it falls below the $80,000 support level, $73,000 will become a key support level.

In the Ethereum market, Standard Chartered Bank recently significantly lowered its ETH price forecast for the end of 2025 from $10,000 to $4,000. This adjustment is mainly due to factors such as the Layer 2 expansion plan weakening the ETH market value and the possible continued decline in the ETH/BTC ratio. It is worth noting that the Ethereum Foundation is actively listening to community feedback and exploring operational changes to adapt to market changes.

In terms of regulation and policy, QCP Capital said that although the lower-than-expected CPI data in the United States last week provided a temporary respite, the possibility of the Fed turning dovish remains limited amid ongoing tariff risks and inflation concerns. The market generally expects the Fed to keep interest rates unchanged at the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, but market volatility is likely to remain at a high level amid policy uncertainty.

Macquarie Bank's latest report warns the overall market, pointing out that Trump's economic policies may trigger a sharp adjustment in the stock market. Unless trade policy turns moderate and spending is cut, real consumer spending in the United States may slow significantly. The S&P 500 index has fallen nearly 8% from its high last month, and the Nasdaq index has fallen nearly 12% from its peak in December last year. Against this background, the market is closely watching the results of the Federal Reserve's FOMC meeting this week, especially the potential adjustments to the quantitative tightening plan, which may have an important impact on the trend of the cryptocurrency market.

2. Key data (as of 13:30 HKT on March 18)

• Bitcoin: $82,671.90 (-11.31% year-to-date), daily spot volume $24.471 billion

• Ethereum: $1,894.96 (-42.82% year-to-date), with a daily spot volume of $11.089 billion

• Fear and corruption index: 34 (fear)

• Average GAS: BTC 2 sat/vB, ETH 0.4 Gwei

• Market share: BTC 60.7%, ETH 8.5%

• Upbit 24-hour trading volume ranking: XRP, UXLINK, AUCTION, BTC, CARV

• 24-hour BTC long-short ratio: 0.9681

• Sector ups and downs: RWA sector rose 9%, BSC ecosystem rose 2.68%

• 24-hour liquidation A total of 101,237 people were liquidated worldwide, with a total liquidation amount of US$182 million, including BTC liquidation of US$44.73 million and ETH liquidation of US$29.98 million

3. ETF flows (as of March 17 EST)

• Bitcoin ETF: $275 million

• Ethereum ETF: -$7.29 million

4. Today’s Outlook

• Initia will shut down wallet extension on March 18

• Binance will list DF/USDC, EPIC/USDC, GMX/USDC, MKR/USDC and RPL/USDC trading pairs

• Binance to Support Kadena (KDA) Network Upgrade and Hard Fork

• The application deadline for SuiNS RFP program of Sui Foundation is 15:59 on March 18

• Binance Supports BinaryX (BNX) Rebranding and Token Swap to Four (FORM)

• Solv Protocol announced that unclaimed SOLV will be returned to the community rewards and DAO treasury after 17:00 on March 18

• Babylon will extend the airdrop registration deadline to March 19

• Fasttoken (FTN) unlocked 20 million tokens, accounting for 4.65% of the current circulation, worth approximately US$79.8 million;

• QuantixAI (QAI) unlocked approximately 566,000 tokens, accounting for 3960.24% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$41.4 million;

• Melania Meme (MELANIA) unlocked 26.25 million tokens, accounting for 17.50% of the current circulation, worth approximately $17.6 million;

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote speech at 1:00 a.m. on March 19

• The biggest gainers in the top 500 by market capitalization today : X Empire (X) up 118.14%, Mubarak (MUBARAK) up 66.48%, Bubblemaps (BMT) up 58.14%, API3 (API3) up 37.31%, Cheems (CHEEMS) up 27.86%

5. Hot News

Spot gold stands at $3,010/ounce, setting a new record high

Blur unlocked 21.69 million BLUR 4 hours ago.

Vitalik sells 5,000 DHN for 65.19 ETH

Bithumb to List BMT Token in Korean Won Market

NVIDIA GTC conference is about to be held, focusing on the iteration of AI computing power

Metaplanet announces issuance of 2 billion yen zero-coupon ordinary bonds to purchase more Bitcoin

CryptoQuant CEO believes Bitcoin bull cycle is over

WLFI announced that it has included BTC, ETH, TRX, LINK, SUI, and ONDO in its strategic token reserves

Canary has filed an S-1 filing to launch the Canary SUI ETF

YZi Labs Announces Investment in Plume Network

MicroStrategy bought another 130 bitcoins at an average price of $82,981

The contract deployment volume of Base chain reached 11.4 million last week, setting a new record high