Weekly Market Update: Turbulent Times

There is a famous quote that summarises the current situation very well: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”. It certainly feels like we are in the midst of those ‘turbulent times’ right now.

Grok 3’s description of the world in 2025: what a delightful mess we’ve stumbled into. The economy’s doing its best impression of a tightrope walker after a big night out, teetering between collapse and cautious optimism while ‘experts’ argue over whether the rope’s even attached to anything. Geopolitics? Picture a chess game where half the players are cheating, the other half forgot the rules, and the board’s on fire. Everyone’s got a theory, no one’s got a clue, and the data’s about as reliable as a fortune cookie in a power outage. At this point, uncertainty’s the only certainty we’ve got.

In crypto news we saw this uncertainty play out; just as Bitcoin led a recovery back towards $100k at the end of last week the Bybit hack smashed the market back down again. Altcoins, notably Ethereum, and Memecoins have taken a severe beating as Bitcoin continues to trade in a tight consolidation range seemingly awaiting the next bullish catalyst.

On a slightly longer term horizon, the market is still filled with cautious optimism as the newly formed US Crypto Working Group is deliberating on new crypto regulations and a potential US strategic crypto reserve by the end of April. We’ve also seen a softening of approach from the SEC who has reached a settlement with Coinbase to end litigation – is XRP next?

Big money is continuing to position with Standard Chartered Bank saying it expects more sovereign wealth funds to buy into BTC, State Street is looking to become a crypto custodian and Mastercard are moving beyond the crypto experimentation phase.

In macro news, the world is still trying to come to terms with the ‘Trump trade’ as the impact of tariffs is already being felt in certain sectors – and President Trump has now confirmed that import tariffs will “go forward” for Canada and Mexico next week. 

Some cracks are starting to grow in the US economy based on the latest housing and PMI data, just after the Fed announced a slowing of rate cuts. But this hasn’t slowed the DOGE Department’s tear through the US public sector as Elon Musk symbolically accepted the gift of a ‘chainsaw’ from the Argentine President, Milei. 

President Trump has also been causing chaos across Europe this past week as his feud with Ukraine President Zelenzky escalated dramatically. Europe is truly in a difficult position with a deepening recession and worsening relations with the US. 

Germany, the former ‘powerhouse economy’ of Europe, is the latest member state to shift to the right with their latest election results, just as the economy contracted for a second year in a row.

Turning to Asia Pacific, China is firmly in focus as it continues to try and stabilise its economy whilst causing chaos with surprise military exercises in the Tasman Sea. AU and NZ will need to tread carefully with their biggest trading partner.

Market sentiment plunged on Trump tariff news yesterday: Extreme Fear

Highlights this week: 

• Bitcoin led a recovery back towards $100k at the end of last week, before the Bybit hack smashed the market back down again
• Even Michael Saylor’s $2 billion BTC buy didn’t stop a waterfall like selloff yesterday
• Only a handful of top100 by market cap projects are in the green after a volatile trading week where the Bybit hack and then Trump tariff news delivered a double blow
• BTC saw a sharp reversal and is down 5.7% for the week (at time of writing) and dipped more than 20% below its ATH
• ETH down just 4.9% despite the Bybit hack and market sell off
• SOL and DOGE led the charge into the red as the shine faded on memecoin mania and are trading down 12.2% and 14.4% respectively
• Other top memecoins including TRUMP, BONK and PEPE traded more than 20% down before staging a recovery
• Our top performer for the week is Maker (MKR) growing 44.3%

View all top gainers: Visit the top gainers page to find out more. 

Highlights from the crypto space

Bybit suffered a $1.4 billion hack of its ETH and liquid staked ETH wallets. The hack is being attributed to the Lazarus group in North Korea.  Unsurprisingly, Bybit then suffered a $4bn “run” as users withdrew their assets. The wallet provider is trying to establish what happened.

The hack caused Bitcoin to drop by 3% and Ethereum by 7% initially, though Ethereum briefly rebounded due to Bybit’s repurchase of ETH to replenish its reserves.

Ethereum Foundation sparked controversy across social media when it suggested a possible ‘rollback’ to undo the ByBit hack transaction – which was later deemed “technically intractable”. 

Bitcoin is the first trillion dollar asset majority owned by individual investors. There is a cautionary tale that we may be selling our assets to the institutions too. 

Standard Chartered Bank is saying it expects more sovereign wealth funds to buy into BTC. 

Some are noticing and lamenting the fact that crypto is becoming more centralised, more like the financial system it set out to replace.  It’s almost like 200 years of finance created a system to optimise to customer outcomes and crypto is now finding out the same thing…

Despite the market malaise around Ethereum, it is still the go to platform for building, even with Real World Assets.

Brazil approving the first spot XRP ETF and a Brazilian bank is launching a stablecoin on the XRP Ledger.

The ECB wants to use ledgers to help settle ‘central bank money’.

State Street, a massive custodian in traditional finance, is looking to become a crypto custodian next year.  

Mastercard is moving beyond experimentation in crypto, it now wants to bridge tradfi and crypto. 

The SEC has agreed to reach a settlement with Coinbase to dismiss its litigation. 

Robinhood and OpenSea are also seeing some relief from the SEC. It looks like the new administration is taking a more relaxed approach to crypto regulation.

FTX is starting to make repayments to creditors with some $1.2bn being dispersed.  The assets are valued at 2022 prices.  Which sucks for BTC but is just fine if you had ETH on the platform…Crypto Twitter is taking it well.

In other crypto news…

• The Milei Memecoin fiasco is leading some to question if this is the end of that run as now, memes are now synonymous with ‘pump and dump’ schemes.

• Pump.fun shakes off a proposed class action lawsuit and doubles down on memecoin mania by launching a mobile app which allows punters to create & trade on the go.

• The Ethereum foundation is looking at making it easier to send assets across all Ethereum (read layer 2) chains. 

• The founder of Curve is building a new DeFi yield service that hopes to remove impermanent loss. 

• OpenSea reclaims leadership (71.5%) in NFT marketplace after announcement of its long awaited $SEA token.

Tax season in New Zealand is coming!🕜 Don’t sweat it! Use our tax guide to help you learn how to manage your crypto taxes. Plus, if you are new Koinly users, you can enjoy 20% off their crypto tax reporting.

🌎 Macro news TLDR: …More turmoil…

The world’s economic rollercoaster continues as central banks tread carefully under growing economic uncertainty.

US economic data surprised to the downside last week, after a hawkish Fed announced a slowing of rate cuts at their last meeting. President Trump and DOGE continue on a tear with mixed results and growing scepticism. 

Europe is staggering along with no end to their recession in sight. And it’s a mixed bag in Asia Pacific as China tries to stabilise its economy.

U.S. economic news

New housing starts are well down, so are mortgage applications. The US housing market appears to be tanking.  US jobless claims were down, but not as much as expected. 

PMI’s are falling in the US with services falling quite sharply. This is backed by the Chicago Fed’s national activity index which contracted in January, and Texas manufacturing outlook which is grim. 

The impact of tariffs is already being felt in certain sectors. And Trump has announced that sweeping tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico “will go forward” when the month-long suspension expires next week!

President Trump has also caused quite a stir on social media with plans to audit U.S. gold reserves: “We’re going to go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there”.  The Treasury Department website states there are 147,341,858.382 troy ounces in Fort Knox.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has laid off more than 20,000 workers and offered buyouts to another 75,000, across a wide array of the government departments. DOGE claims to have saved $96 billion to date – but some claim this is overinflated.

Over in Europe….

President Trump is pushing for a quick deal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict after escalating his feud with Zelensky and calling him a “dictator”. The EU is stuck between a rock and a hard place as they consider next steps.

UK inflation hit a 10 month high, rising from December’s 2.5% to 3% in January.

Euro zone business activity saw very tepid growth in February as consumer demand fell along with a continued decline in manufacturing.

Goldman Sachs estimates that a “limited truce” in the Russia-Ukraine war would boost the Eurozone’s GDP by 0.2%, while a genuine, lasting peace deal could raise overall output by as much as 0.5%.

Germany’s election result showed a marked shift towards the right and it looks like a coalition is required again. Their economy contracted for a second year in a row in 2024 highlighting the depth of the downturn it currently faces. 

Mercedes-Benz cus costs and pivoted back to combustion engines in a bid to revive margins as earnings are expected to plummet in 2025 as they face heavy competition.

And in Asia Pacific…

In China, house prices have fallen 5% over the last year in 70 cities. They also kept the prime loan rates unchanged.  Indonesia’s central bank held rates at 5.75%. 

Japan’s inflation continues to rise with Core inflation up to 3.2% in January from 3% in December.  Rate rises are definitely on the table.

However, their PMI’s continue to rise, and it’s the same in India.  Singapore’s CPI came in well under expectations at 1.2% for January. 

Australian employment data showed a shift towards full time employment, and a slight bump in their seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 4.1%. In an interesting turn of events, the SA and Federal government appear to be nationalising a steel mill. 

And Australian banks share prices are taking a beating on the back of some disappointing earnings reports and increased competition on margins…must be nice to have competition.  Australian PMI’s are holding steady. 

NZ foreign minister, Winston Peters, is on route to Beijing to discuss the Cook Islands deal and question Chinese navy activity in the Tasman Sea.  Stats NZ reported that the trade deficit narrowed to $486m in January and that retail trade volume was up in the December Quarter. 

That’s a wrap for this week!

Stay tuned for the next update

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