Coindesk

A fog of uncertainty continues to hang over global markets as crypto assets trade sideways, ahead of this week’s U.S. Federal Reserve meeting. While equities briefly found their footing on Monday, crypto markets remained defensive after Friday’s $1.2 billion futures liquidation, which shook out overleveraged longs and sent altcoins sharply lower over the weekend.Bitcoin rose above $108,000 in the U.S. morning session on Monday, then slid to as low as $106,500 due to profit-taking. However, buying activity later moved prices above $107,000 in the Asian morning hours on Tuesday. BTC ETFs saw $1.4 billion in net inflows over the past week, reaffirming the role of spot products as price shock absorbers even during broader pullbacks.Meanwhile, ether (ETH) rose 1.5% over...

Good Morning, Asia. Here's what's making news in the markets:Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk's Crypto Daybook Americas.AnalysisAs Asia begins its trading day, Tron DAO's TRX token is trading flat, up 1%.Crypto traders don't seem to be making much out of a recent announcement that Tron – for all intents and purposes – is 'going public' on the NASDAQ via a reverse merger with SRM Entertainment, a lightly traded Nasdaq-listed toy company that is now rebranding as “Tron Inc.” complete with a TRX treasury strategy.While a blockchain going public might be a little different than...

Crypto markets pushed higher on Monday as traders have shifted focus from geopolitical anxieties to crypto-related institutional developments ahead of the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting.Bitcoin BTC has risen 3.1% in the last 24 hours and is now trading for $108,600, only a couple of thousand dollars below its all-time record. It certainly wasn’t alone in its ascension. The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins — is up 4.3% in the same period of time, buoyed by strong performances from XRP and chainlink LINK, which both notched 6-7% gains, and most other tokens rising at least 3%.A check at traditional markets shows that risk appetite has...

Global banking giant JPMorgan Chase has filed a trademark application for a new crypto-focused platform branded as JPMD, signaling that the bank is pushing deeper into digital assets.According to the application filed on Sunday to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office, JPMD will offer services such as "providing trading, exchange, transfer, and payment services for digital assets" and "issuance of digital assets."The bank's moves come as traditional financial institutions consider stablecoin issuance and asset managers issue crypto investment products and explore asset tokenization.JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has long criticized cryptocurrencies, said last month the bank will allow its clients to buy bitcoin BTC. The bank recently added BTC ETFs for loan collateral for customers, and was also mentioned among...

Cantor initiated coverage of the three largest solana SOL treasury companies DeFi Development (DFDV), Upexi (UPXI) and Sol Strategies (HODL) with an overweight rating, the Wall Street firm said in a research report Monday.The broker has a $45 price target for DeFi Development, a C$54 objective for Sol Strategies, and a $16 price target for Upexi."We believe SOL treasury companies are betting the future of finance will be on-chain and that the chain of choice will be Solana," analysts led by Thomas Shinske wrote.Solana's biggest competitor is the Ethereum blockchain, Cantor noted, but its technology is meaningfully better than its larger peer on every metric."Developer growth on SOL has far exceeded that on ETH recently, and we expect this to...