Dogecoin Price On The Edge: Breakout Or Breakdown—What’s Next?

Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin minting has halted for the past 10 days. According to data from Ripple Stablecoin Tracker on X, the blockchain payments firm last minted 625,000 RLUSD at the Treasury on Feb. 10, 2025.

Why no new RLUSD since Feb. 10

Notably, RLUSD is a stablecoin designed for payments, especially cross-border transactions. Hence, the minting process might occur when there is an increase in demand or to prepare for an anticipated request surge.

Analysts argue that the current pause in minting from the Treasury might be a strategic way to stabilize supply and avoid flooding the market. If supply exceeds demand, it could impact the value of RLUSD.

It could also signal a strategic decision to monitor market conditions before minting a new batch of RLUSD. It is worth noting that new minting happens after technical and operational adjustments. This ensures that the reserve asset backing RLUSD is sufficient to guarantee stability.

Given that RLUSD and XRP are within Ripple’s ecosystem, this development could impact the token. RLUSD is a relatively new stablecoin compared to others like USDT and USDC, which dominate the market.

Hence, if the pause in printing results from a failure to gain traction among users, it could likely affect investor confidence in the Ripple ecosystem, including the value of XRP.

Market implications and Ripple's stablecoin ambitions

As of this writing, XRP was trading at $2.67, a 0.73% decline in the last 24 hours. XRP has failed to breach the $2.80 resistance level in the last seven days.

Meanwhile, trading volume has also dropped by 28.52% to $3.84 billion as investors remain cautious.

RLUSD, on the other hand, has remained relatively stable and is changing hands at $0.9999. Market watchers opine that the decision not to mint additional RLUSD resulted from market dynamics.

At RLUSD’s official launch, Ripple stated it was out to capture a significant portion of the stablecoin market. Despite the minting halt, RLUSD has also achieved some new milestones in the ecosystem as supply topped the 120 million token range.

LIJA, Malta, Feb. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — On February 20, 2025, Brazil’s Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) authorized the Hashdex Nasdaq XRP Index Fund, marking a global first for a spot XRP ETF. Managed by Hashdex, a prominent asset manager known for its suite of cryptocurrency ETFs, this fund will be listed on Brazil’s B3 stock exchange. While the official trading date is yet to be announced, Hashdex has confirmed the approval and plans to provide further details soon.

TL;DR

The Odds are Rising

Over the past few months, there has been an influx of companies trying to launch the first spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States. Some of the well-known names include Grayscale, Bitwise, and 21Shares. It is important to note that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officiallyacknowledgedtheir applications.

Most recently, Grayscale’s filing was posted to the Federal Register. This means that the SEC has until October 18 to approve or reject the move.

The latest development caused huge enthusiasm across the XRP community, with many members believing the launch of the investment vehicle is now just a matter of time. It is important to note that Ripple’s CEO also shares that thesis,assertingmultiple times that an XRP ETF is “inevitable.”

The product’s chances of receiving approval in the US before the end of 2025 have risen to 81% (according to Polymarket). Meanwhile, the odds for this to happen by July 31 remain around 45%.Brazil Was First

And while on eyes are on the US SEC, Brazil’s securities regulator – the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários – recentlyapprovedthe world’s first spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF). This pushed the underlying asset’s price to almost $2.75 before retracing at the current $2.67 (per CoinGecko’s data).

However, the potential launch of such a product in America would likely have a bigger impact than the green light in Brazil or any other country. After all, the US is the largest and most influential financial market globally.

The launch of a spot XRP ETF in the nation would introduce the token to a vast pool of institutional and retail investors and could serve as a catalyst for worldwide adoption.

It could also be interpreted as a possible game-changer for the entire crypto industry since it will show a positive stance from the SEC, which recently enforced important changes in its leadership.

Its Chairman, Gary Gensler, vacated his post on January 20 and was succeeded by the pro-crypto Mark Uyeda. A few weeks later, one of the agency’s top crypto litigators – Jorge Tenreiro – was moved to the IT department.

Sonic (S), previously known as Fantom (FTM), is leading the crypto market with a significant surge over the daily and weekly timeframes. Analysts noted that the post-rebrand bullish momentum has sent the token to test a key resistance level, which could propel the price to the $1 barrier.

Sonic Leads With Post-Rebrand Bullish Momentum

Following the anticipated token upgrade, Sonic’s native token price has seen significant bullish momentum, reaching the $0.80 mark twice. On January 13, Fantom officially rebranded as Sonic, upgrading FTM tokens to S tokens on a 1:1 ratio.

Amid the rebrand, the cryptocurrency hit a yearly high of $0.84 before retracing to the $0.50 support in the following days. Over the past month, the cryptocurrency has hovered between the $0.40-$0.60 price range, finally breaking out of this range at the start of this week.

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe highlighted that Sonic has been one of the key ecosystems recently, with its Total Value Locked (TVL) surging 300% in less than two months. According to DeFiLlama data, Sonic’s TVL has surged from $405.39 million to $635.31 million in the past seven days.

The analyst also remarked S is fully unlocked, unlike other leading altcoins like Solana (SOL) and SUI, and has high throughput and fast settlement. Based on this, he considers Sonic “a true competitor of SOL and likely one to watch for the upcoming year as the price has bounced the strongest.”

Sonic has been one of the leading altcoins this week, surging as the best-performing cryptocurrency in the top 100 with its 54.61% weekly increase. Additionally, it has come on top in the daily timeframe, leading the market with its 20% jump in the past 24 hours.

S Breakout Hits New High

Several market watchers have noted S’s recent performance, suggesting it could continue its bullish momentum. Altcoin Sherpa stated Sonic is “still one of the strongest midcaps there is right now.”

The analysts hinted it could surge to higher price targets as FTM hit an all-time high (ATH) of nearly $4 last cycle.

Meanwhile, analyst Sjuul from AltCryptoGems pointed out that the cryptocurrency formed a rounded bottom over the past four weeks after falling below $0.60. This Monday, S’s price broke above this key resistance.

Over the past three days, Sonic has reclaimed the $0.60-$0.65 price range, confirming the breakout from the one-month downtrend. This performance led S to another 20% surge in the past 24 hours to retest the $0.80 resistance and a new yearly high at $0.87.

However, Ali Martinez stated Sonic could see a spike in profit-taking on the horizon. The analyst indicated that the TD Sequential flashed a sell signal on the 4-hour chart after hitting the $0.80 target from its head-and-shoulders pattern.

A sell-off could see the cryptocurrency’s price retrace to its $0.60 support zone and retest it. Meanwhile, holding the current level could further propel Sonic’s bullish momentum toward the $1 barrier.

As of this writing, S trades at $0.86, a 66% increase in the monthly timeframe.

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Cryptocurrency prices are rising after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s former crypto enforcement unit transitioned into the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit and amid dovish comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic.

Renaming the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit is significant because it shows the agency is moving away from its crypto focus that often led to accusations of regulation by enforcement and legal battles with major industry participants.

“In the near to medium term, clearer regulations will likely boost institutional participation, leading to improvements in market infrastructure,” BackPack founder and CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk. Bitcoin is now above $98,000 after adding 1.2% in 24 hours, while the broader CoinDesk 20 Index rose 1.35%.

Yet, volatility is still relatively low. "These environments may feel slow and frustrating, but they rarely persist for long — volatility tends to mean revert,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake O told CoinDesk.

With tensions between the U.S. and its European allies growing, investors are hoping Germany's election on Sunday will lead to a stable coalition government that will push out economic reforms to stimulate growth and boost defense spending. Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a positive result could lead to a more risk-on approach.

Open interest has already moved up ahead of the election. Still, the crypto market lacks positive catalysts in the near term, JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a report.

In fact, the market is nearing backwardation — where spot prices rise above futures prices — in a “negative development” that’s “indicative of demand weakness” by institutional investors using regulated CME futures contracts to gain exposure to the market. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

Feb. 21: TON (The Open Network) becomes the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for messaging platform Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.

Feb. 24: At epoch 115968, testing of Ethereum’s Pecta upgrade on the Holesky testnet starts.

Feb. 25, 9:00 a.m.: Ethereum Foundation research team AMA on Reddit.

Feb. 27: Solana-based L2 Sonic SVM (SONIC) mainnet launch (“Mobius”).

Macro

Feb. 21, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases February’s (Flash) U.S. Purchasing Managers' Index (Flash) reports.

Composite PMI Prev. 52.7

Manufacturing PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.2

Services PMI Est. 53 vs. Prev. 52.9

Feb. 24, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases eurozone's (final) consumer inflation data for January.

Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.7% vs. Prev. 2.7%

Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.4%

Earnings

Feb. 24: Riot Platforms R, post-market, $-0.18

Feb. 25: ​​Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, $-0.17

Feb. 25: Cipher Mining (CIFR), pre-market, $-0.09

Feb. 26: MARA Holdings M, post-market, $-0.13

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Sky DAO is discussing withdrawing a portion of the Smart Burn Engine’s LP tokens to stop malicious actors from acquiring them.

DYdX DAO is discussing increasing the limit on the maximum notional value of liquidations that can occur within a given block on the dYdX protocol to enhance the speed and efficiency of risk reduction during liquidations.

Unlocks

Feb. 21: Fast Token (FTN) to unlock 4.66% of circulating supply worth $78.6 million.

Feb. 28: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.92% of circulating supply worth $34.23 million.

Mar. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 0.74% of circulating supply worth $81.07 million.

Token Launches

Conferences:

CoinDesk's Consensus to take place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)

Feb. 24: RWA London Summit 2025

Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)

March 2-3: Crypto Expo Europe (Bucharest, Romania)

March 8: Bitcoin Alive (Sydney, Australia)

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

With a botched launch from Argentine president Javier Milei and a token proposed by self-professed Nazi Kanye West, now known as Ye, this week in memecoin land has been one to forget.

Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter said the craze is "unquestionably over," a view that might be cemented by a report revealing that West is planning to introduce YZY token — and will own 70% of the supply.

The rest of the crypto market remains relatively unperturbed by the potential demise of the sector: ETH and LTC are up by 3% this week whilst TRX has risen by 7.7% as liquidity appears to be rotating from speculative tokens back to more utilitarian projects.

NEAR leads the pack on Friday, surging by 11% after announcing the "first truly autonomous" AI agents. The agents will be able to autonomously own, trade and manage assets on-chain.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC open interest on centralized exchanges rose nearly 5% to $37.3 billion in the past 24 hours. This, coupled with the reversal in funding from positive to negative, suggests a potential short squeeze scenario. Short liquidations have dominated the futures markets over that period, nearing a total of $110 million compared with $6.11 million in longs.

Among the assets with over $100 million in open interest, Maker DAO, Virtuals Protcol and Artificial Super Intelligence saw the highest one-day increase, rising by 39.2%, 35.5% and 28.00%, respectively.

Among the options instruments, the call option on BTC with a strike price of $99,000 and expiring Feb. 22 has traded with the most volume on Deribit. The next most popular options instrument is the call on BTC with a strike price of $108,000, expiring on Feb. 28. The action hints at the optimistic short-term sentiment in the market over the past couple of days.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 0.28% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $98,632.42 (24hrs: +1.35%)

ETH is up 2.09% at $2,800.02 (24hrs: +2.15%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.92% to 3,298.29 (24hrs: +1.49%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.99%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0010% (1.0961% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.29% at 106.68

Gold is down 0.31% at $2,929.76/oz

Silver is down 0.12% to $32.91/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +0.26% at 38,776.94

Hang Seng closed +3.99% at 23.477.92

FTSE is up 0.20% at 8,680.19

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.18% at 5,471.08

DJIA closed Thursday down -1.01% at 44,176.65

S&P 500 closed -0.43% at 6,117.52

Nasdaq closed -0.47% at 19,962.36

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.44% at 25,514.08

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.76% at 2,480.21

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate was down 2 bps at 4.49%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,138.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.13% at 22,170.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.10% to 44,309

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.02 (-0.35%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02842 (2.01%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 807 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $54.92

Total Fees: 5.34 BTC / $526,892

CME Futures Open Interest: 178,500 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 33.4 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.49%

Technical Analysis

TAO has emerged as one of the strongest-performing assets over the past week, fueled by the launch of the dynamicTAO upgrade. This momentum has propelled the price above all key exponential moving averages on the daily time frame, signaling renewed strength.

Adding to the bullish sentiment, the price action has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern.

TAO’s recent listing on Coinbase provided an extra catalyst, driving its price up nearly 20% to a high of $495 since the initial announcement.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy M: closed on Thursday at $323.92 (+1.65%), up 0.37% at $324.85 in pre-market

Coinbase Global C: closed at $256.59 (-0.80%), up 0.86% at $258.80

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$25.65 (+1.30%)

MARA Holdings M: closed at $15.95 (+1.08%), up 0.38% at $16.01

Riot Platforms R: closed at $11.60 (+0.35%), up 0.52% at $11.66

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $11.84 (-1.50%), up 0.51% at $11.90

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.06 (+1.72%), up 0.80% at $10.14

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.49 (-1.27%), down 0.31% at $22.42

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.24 (+0.04%), unchanged

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.80 (-1.26%), down 2.72% at $46.50

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$364.8 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.63 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.169 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$13.1 million

Cumulative net flows: $3.16 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.807 million.

Overnight Flows

Bitcoin's price action has triggered short liquidations totaling $97.9 million at the $98,890 level, according to CoinGlass. The next key resistance levels, based on the liquidation heat map, are $99,185 and $99,332, where liquidations worth $65.2 million and $67.9 million, respectively, are clustered.

On the downside, significant long liquidations are positioned at $97,415 and $97,194, amounting to $69.3 million and $70.7 million, respectively. These key levels highlight potential areas of volatility as bitcoin navigates its current price range.

While You Were Sleeping

Crypto Market Faces Weak Demand, Needs Trump Initiatives to Kick In, JPMorgan Says (CoinDesk): JPMorgan said CME futures data reveals weak institutional interest in crypto, with any pro-crypto initiatives from the Trump administration unlikely to emerge until the second half of the year.

South African Firm to Amass Bitcoin Hoard in First for Continent (Bloomberg): Altvest Capital adopted bitcoin to be a treasury reserve asset. It bought one BTC and is considering a $10 million share sale to expand its digital holdings.

Block Shares Fall on Profit, Revenue Miss (CNBC): At its Q4 2024 earnings call, Block (XYZ) executives commented on Proto, their bitcoin mining initiative. CFO Amrita Ahuja said the project should drive growth in the second half.

Japan Yields Fall as Ueda Warns BOJ Can Step In to Smooth Market (Bloomberg): Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda vowed to buy government bonds if long-term yields spike. Earlier, 10-year yields hit 1.455% — the most since 2009.

U.K. Retail Sales Rise for First Time in Five Months (The Wall Street Journal): In January, retail spending in the U.K. rose 1.7% from December, led by a 5.6% jump in food store sales as more people ate at home.

New Microsoft Chip Shortens Timeline to Make Bitcoin Quantum-Resistant: River (Cointelegraph): Bitcoin-focused financial services firm River said Microsoft’s Majorana — though not yet a threat — could reach a 1-million-qubit scale by 2027–2029, potentially enabling attacks on the blockchain.

In the Ether

One of the biggest resistance levels in Shiba Inu's recent trading history is currently in the market. It may be difficult for the asset to break through because more than 515 trillion SHIB tokens are positioned at a critical price level. Following a dramatic correction in recent weeks, SHIB has stabilized and is exhibiting indications of a possible recovery. Nonetheless, holders who are still losing money from earlier price levels are applying tremendous selling pressure to counteract its upward momentum.

The price at which SHIB is currently trading around $0.000016 corresponds to a sizable concentration of tokens that were previously bought at higher prices. Addresses are categorized by their purchase price in relation to the current market price using the In/Out of the Money indicator, which is used to analyze SHIB's on-chain data. Chart by TradingView">

In the Money (profitable) addresses are those whose current price is higher than the typical purchase price. On the other hand, they are Out of the Money (losing money) if the price is lower than their entry point. Approximately 75,000 addresses contain 515 trillion SHIB tokens in the $0.000016-$0.000018 range, according to the most recent data. This suggests that there is a lot of resistance at these levels since many investors want to sell their holdings at break-even or with little profit.

Shiba Inu needs a large increase in buying pressure in order to push past its current price range. SHIB may produce a bullish breakout and possibly retest higher resistance levels at $0.000020 and above if it is able to break through the $0.000018 level. On the down side, if this resistance is not overcome, there may be consolidation or even another pullback toward the support level at $0.000014.

Shiba Inu's current price action points to a pivotal point in the asset's history. There is more room for growth if the 515 trillion SHIB token resistance level can be overcome.