Bitcoin Teeters on Second-Ever Six-Month Losing Streak

Bitcoin only has a few hours of trading left in March to avoid its second six-month losing streak in its nearly two-decade history.

Crucially, it’s not getting any help from Strategy, which just skipped buying more Bitcoin for the first time in 13 weeks. (Today, Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor promoted the 11.5% dividends his STRC shares are offering with a strange AI advert on X.)

And given the ongoing war in Iran, crypto markets are grappling with an increasing number of unknowns — as oil prices surge again, inflation fears return, and a big jobs report approaches on Friday.

But even as the biggest player in Bitcoin takes his foot off the gas, Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee continues to scoop up Ethereum, calling it a, “good ‘war time’ store of value.”

"As the Iran war enters its 5th week, ETH and crypto outperformed the broader market with ETH outperforming equities by 1,160bp," BitMine Chair Tom Lee said in a statement. "This is a marked contrast to Gold (a traditional store of value), which has underperformed by more than 750 basis points. Crypto is demonstrating itself to be a good 'war time' store of value."

Importantly, BitMine now holds 3.92% of all outstanding ETH, with only about 20% to go to hit its long-stated 5% goal.

Digital Asset Products Break Inflow Streak

Somehow, despite all the volatility, investors in digital asset investment products were net-buyers over the last four weeks. Last week, however, that streak broke down with more than $400 million in outflows, according to CoinShares.

CLARITY Act Odds Worsen

If you ask the politicians attached to ongoing negotiations in Washington on the CLARITY Act, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

Last week, blame was once again pointed at Coinbase for rejecting concessions on scrapping yield paid to stablecoin holders. Odds of the bill passing have now slipped from 71% earlier in March to just around a coin flip.

The stablecoin yield debate obviously matters for Coinbase, which has a partnership in place with USDC issuer Circle. Both stocks have gotten slammed this month as investors seemingly wake up to the stakes. Coinbase is now off by about 30% on the year, while CRCL is now down 25% just this past week.

Bitwise Asset Management’s Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen joined us last week to quell those fears, noting that there will be multiple compromises as the tokenization train rolls on.

“The CLARITY Act is so much bigger than what issuers can or can’t do with yield, and how consumers can or can’t access that yield,” he said. “But it’s really been the sticking point because of course, banks are fighting yield being passed down to consumers because they’re worried about deposit flight, etc.. I think ultimately, what it means is that we’re making progress and progress is good.”

Time to make good on that progress is running out, however. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott knows he’s only got until May before the window starts to close. For now, he’s eyeing the post-Easter break to advance to the next step.

“Everyone is still at the table. There’s still work to be done,” he said on Fox Business. “I’m still very optimistic about where we are.”

Big Jobs Friday On Deck

This week is a fairly big data week — culminating in the big March jobs report out Friday. Economists expect to see 51,000 jobs added, but the week leading up to the print looks just as important.

For one thing, the Conference Board consumer sentiment reading is due on Tuesday and is expected to show a decline in how consumers are feeling about the economy. The January reading was revised last month after results came in at the weakest sentiment has been in 12 years.

Whatever data points we get this week could quickly get scrapped given just how quickly headlines are swirling on the war front. Interestingly, odds of an Iran ground invasion have continued to trend higher, with Polymarket bettors putting a 67% chance on the order for a ground invasion being given by the end of April.

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