Feb 24, 2025: Our weekly Institutional Insights explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

 explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

Weekly Highlight — Mixed Economic Data Leads to Risk-Off Strategies

For the past two months, the strong U.S. economy has given investors confidence to invest in markets, even amidst looming tariffs and a stricter Federal Reserve Board. However, recent data indicates that this support may be weakening.

Last Friday, several reports on consumer sentiment, housing and services contributed to the S&P 500's largest loss of the year as it fell 1.7%, wiping out its weekly gains. In contrast, bonds experienced a rally, driving the yield on 10-year Treasuries down to 4.43%. The VIX {

the Chicago Board Options Exchange's (CBOE) Volatility Index

, known as the "fear gauge"] spiked, but remained below 20, signaling increased market anxiety.

Previously, optimism among investors was fueled by speculation regarding U.S. president Trump’s policies promoting disinflationary growth. However, mixed economic signals are now causing concern, particularly a report showing a decline in consumer sentiment alongside rising long-term inflation expectations — the largest drop since 1995. Additionally, existing U.S. home sales fell for the first time since September 2024, further complicating the outlook.

While January's job growth appeared solid, with 143,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate stable, institutional investors began the year with a pro-risk stance, optimistic about the U.S. economy’s trajectory. Yet, the recent volatility in economic data has prompted a reevaluation of strategies.

Weekly Crypto Highlight — SEC May Drop Lawsuit Against Coinbase

Coinbase announced that the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to drop its lawsuit accusing Coinbase of operating an illegal exchange, pending Commissioners’ approval. Following this news, Coinbase shares initially surged in premarket trading, but fell by 4% to $246.30 as of midday in New York. Bitcoin also declined by about 1%, trading at around $97,000.

This decision signals a shift from the aggressive regulatory stance of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who faced criticism from the crypto industry for enforcing regulations through lawsuits. Last week, the SEC likewise requested a pause on a similar case against Binance, highlighting ongoing developments regarding a regulatory framework for digital assets.

The SEC's complaint will be unfairly dismissed, meaning it cannot be refiled. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that this dismissal will entail no fines or changes in the company’s operations.

Coinbase has actively engaged in Washington, D.C., donating millions to support pro-crypto candidates and recently adding Chris LaCivita, a former Trump campaign manager, to its advisory council. Armstrong has also communicated with Trump directly.

The SEC initially sued Coinbase in June 2023 amidst a broader crackdown on the digital asset industry following the 

. Gensler had claimed that many tokens fell under SEC jurisdiction. 

The dismissal alleviates a significant burden on Coinbase, allowing it to list more tokens and refocus on product development, rather than legal defenses. This outcome removes a key litigation risk, enhancing Coinbase's capacity to innovate. The company recently reported strong fourth-quarter earnings, and now aims to collaborate with Congress and regulators in order to establish clearer rules for the crypto landscape.

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Mixed Economic Data Rattles Market; SEC May Dismiss Lawsuit

KAITO is the core currency of Kaito AI’s InfoFi ecosystem, enabling transactions, governance, staking, and community engagement.

The S&P 500 fell 0.43% amid Walmart’s weak outlook, with investors eyeing PMI and home sales data next. Gold rose 0.23% to $2,939 on safe-haven demand but retreated from a $2,954 high. Traders await S&P Global Flash PMIs. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 0.02%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 2.46% and 0.69%, respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today’s top performer is BERA, which surged nearly 15.8% after The Graph integrated Berachain Mainnet on day one, enabling seamless onchain data access.

Berachain (BERA), founded in 2021, is a Layer 1 blockchain with Proof-of-Liquidity consensus, ensuring security and liquidity while maintaining full Ethereum compatibility. The Graph has 

 support for the newly launched Berachain mainnet from day one. Developers can now query Berachain data using Subgraph Studio, making it easier to organize and access onchain data. This integration enables the creation of fast and efficient frontends for Berachain-powered dapps.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

 is the core currency of Kaito AI’s InfoFi ecosystem, enabling transactions, governance, staking, and community engagement. The total supply is allocated as follows: 56.67% to community and ecosystem initiatives (including ecosystem growth, creator incentives, and liquidity rewards), 25% to core contributors, 10% to the foundation, and 8.3% to early backers. Distribution is merit-based, using AI-driven assessments of engagement, governance participation, and long-term alignment with Kaito’s vision. Staking provides rewards and voting rights, ensuring active participation. A claim process for KAITO will be announced soon.

Yesterday, BTC Spot ETFs recorded a net outflow of $252.8M, including $33.5M from GBTC and $219.3M from non-GBTC funds.

. With $43 million in funding, this presents a valuable opportunity. To maximize your points, complete the "Generate at least one transaction on Sahara Testnet" task by sending a small amount of SAHARA via Metamask. This earns 20 points, a significant amount compared to other tasks. Ensure you take full advantage of this opportunity.

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KAITO Powers the InfoFi Ecosystem with Governance Staking and Community Rewards

Kaito is an AI-powered information indexer specifically designed to deliver actionable insights for cryptocurrency traders and investors. Find out more now!

Within a year of its launch, Kaito has already established itself as a key player in the web3 industry. Its innovative approach combines artificial intelligence with publicly available crypto conversation data, creating a tool that can present an up-to-date picture of the events affecting the cryptocurrency space at any given time.

 is an AI-powered search engine specifically designed for the cryptocurrency space. It’s a premium service with a monthly subscription of $1,099. The platform indexes thousands of 

 sources that aren’t accessible through traditional search engines, and gathers data from Twitter, Discord, governance forums, research papers, news articles, podcasts and even conference transcripts. 

Kaito uses advanced AI algorithms and natural language processing to better understand context and gauge sentiment about topics. Its use of AI and an internal algorithm allows Kaito to filter out the noise, presenting a more accurate picture of community sentiment. 

. Before moving to web3, Hu worked in the traditional finance space for over eight years, including the management of a $500 million equities portfolio at Citadel. His aim with Kaito is to democratize web3 information by giving users access to tools and insights they need to navigate this ever-changing industry. 

Kaito has quickly attracted significant investment from major 

 in the industry. The project has already raised $10.8 million across two funding rounds.

The seed round in August 2023 was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital China, Jane Street and others, as Kaito secured $5.3 million. This was followed by a Series A round in June 2023, led by Superscrypt and Spartan, raising an additional $5.5 million with a valuation of $87.5 million. Other notable investors include Mirana Ventures, Folius Ventures and Alpha Lab Capital. 

Kaito offers a range of features designed to provide users with comprehensive and actionable insights. They include the following:

: Kaito’s platform uses a custom-built large language model (LLM) in combination with real-time data gathered from various sources to provide users with actionable insights on developments in the web3 space. 

:As a web3-native company, Kaito can analyze and understand the nuances of 

 and concepts. This gives it an edge when compared to Web 2.0 search engines that struggle to understand this space. 

: Kaito tracks market sentiment at various levels, including general market sentiment, sector-specific sentiment and sentiment toward specific tokens and projects, providing investors and traders with an important metric in assessing a project’s value.

Kaito uses a custom LLM to enhance its data processing capabilities. The platform aggregates data continuously from various sources, including social media, forums and news websites. This data is then processed using Kaito’s natural language processing capability to identify relevant information, extract key insights and analyze market sentiment. 

In addition, its platform uses a reputation system to give weightage to different posts based on the reputation of each poster. It also employs sophisticated algorithms to filter out spam and bots that often try to shape public opinion on social media platforms, especially on X. 

In December 2024, Kaito AI introduced two new elements to its ecosystem: 

 collection. Yaps is a scoring system that measures user contribution and engagement within the web3 community. Users earn 

 by creating valuable content, engaging with others in the crypto space and participating in discussions on 

. Kaito uses four main attributes in allotting these points:

The system also automatically filters out spam posts, making sure only real posters and useful posts can earn Yap points. While Kaito hasn’t officially confirmed a token airdrop associated with Yaps, the program allows participants to accumulate points that might play a role in future rewards, or initiatives within the Kaito AI ecosystem.

Participation in the Yaps program is completely free. Users just need to log in with their Crypto Twitter accounts and Kaito will start tracking their Yaps scores automatically. 

Genesis NFTis a limited-edition collection of 1,500 

 launched by Kaito AI. Priced at 0.1 ETH each, these NFTs have been minted in three phases:

As of Dec 26, 2024, NFTs in the collection are tradable on OpenSea, with a floor price of approximately 3.69 ETH. 

Kaito is a new and innovative service in the web3 space. Its use of AI to cut through the noise and fragmentation presents a great opportunity for the entire ecosystem. Kaito’s 

 suggests that it’s likely to roll out new features and/or services in the future. While the high subscription fee may be an obstacle for large-scale adoption, Kaito is still likely to become an important tool in the hands of institutions and 

 Perpetual Contract with up to 75x leverage now!

Intermediate

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Kaito: AI-Powered Web3 Information Platform

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, as well as futures, options and perpetual contracts.

With fewer macroeconomic releases in early 2025, the crypto market has experienced lower volatility and stagnant spot prices. This has led to decreased implied volatility in derivatives, a steepening term structure and stable open interest. 

However, ETH options still anticipate continued price volatility. Historically, such sideways movements have seen altcoins underperform, reflected in disappointing funding rates in the derivatives market.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Without clear narratives or volatile spot price movements, open interest in perpetual swap contracts has remained flat over the past two weeks, with trade volumes also subdued in this low-volatility environment. Notably, SOL's perpetual positioning hasn’t significantly changed, even with its spot price 35% below its all-time high from late January.

On February 17, ETH’s spot price surged 6%, contrasting with the sideways movement of other crypto assets, but those gains were nearly reversed within 24 hours. This led to higher realized volatility in derivatives, and a flatter term structure as compared to BTC. Traders continue to assign a premium to short-dated ETH options, whose volatility has been higher than that of BTC for some time. Additionally, ETH option trade volumes have spiked, with calls reaching $0.25 billion on Feb 15, 2025.

Since reaching its all-time high in late January 2025, Solana's spot price has declined, leading to muted options markets with low activity in both calls and puts. Open interest is balanced between upside and downside, and is primarily focused on longer-dated positions, reflecting a lack of interest in short-term trades amidst disappointing spot market activity.

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Feb 19, 2025): Crypto Remains Silent as ETH Sees Volatility

Altcoins

EOS is often referred to as an 'Ethereum killer', but how does this cryptocurrency really hold up against its competition? Read all about that and more in this article.

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EOS, which is often referred to as an “

EOS is the cryptocurrency that powers the EOS 

. One billion EOS tokens were minted in a year-long ICO before the public launch of the EOS 

 back in June 2017. Backers raised more than $4billion, making it the most successful ICO campaign ever. 

This guide will discuss everything from the EOS network to the EOS token and the technology that powers the EOS ecosystem. 

EOS is a high-performance blockchain infrastructure that provides a fast, cost-effective and secure environment for commercial-scale DApps. EOS blockchain is Ethereum’s competitor, built for both public and private use cases. 

The EOS ecosystem has three main components: 

 The underlying software, more like an operating system that runs and manages the EOS blockchain network. It provides a tool kit for developers to simplify DApp development. 

 The main EOS blockchain, governed by the Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm that hosts and runs DApps. 

 EOS blockchain has an underlying currency, EOS tokens, which are responsible for on-chain staking, governance and other economic activities on the network.

The architecture of EOS allows for fast and cheap transactions, with the ability to host and run smart contracts in a robust execution environment. EOS has a half-second block time that is ultrafast compared to some other blockchain platforms, where the average block times range between 2–10 minutes. 

EOS has introduced the EOS VM WASM (web assembly) engine as part of the EOSIO 1.0 version, which increased the transaction speeds by a factor of 12x. It also stores the state of the network in multi-index tables, which makes it much more responsive than other blockchains where users are confronted with frustrating delays while performing everyday activities on DApps. 

The EOS blockchain is not only robust but is designed to be highly flexible. Unlike some other blockchain platforms, developers can easily upgrade their EOS-deployed smart contracts and add extensions to enhance their scope and functionality. The network behavior on the EOS platform is defined by system contracts that are highly configurable, which makes it easy to perform system upgrades without making changes to the core consensus. 

Smart contracts on the EOS blockchain are written in industry-standard C++, with a wide range of software development its (SDKs) and a plethora of various development tools provided by the EOSIO library. These tools and SDKs facilitate developers in building and launching their DApps on the EOS blockchain in a frictionless manner.

EOS blockchain brings a paradigm shift in the programmable blockchain space with its unique approach toward solving one of the most fundamental problems in the crypto ecosystem: 

To help achieve the required scalability, it uses a customized variant of a 

 consensus algorithm called Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS). The DPoS consensus algorithm was a brainchild 

 Dan Larimer, CTO of the EOS project and the founder of Bitshares (an early crypto exchange) and Steem (a crypto-based publishing platform). DPoS was first tested in Bitshares and Steem before becoming a part of the EOS blockchain. 

Before getting into the mechanism of the DPoS consensus algorithm, we first need to understand the concept of ‘Block Producers.” In any PoS-based network, there are stakers (or validators) responsible for block production and overall network security. 

In the EOS blockchain, there are block producers who are the custodians of the network and are chosen by the community voting process. The top 21 selected block producers are called the Delegates. They verify all the transactions on the network, construct blocks, run different processes for smart contracts and secure the network. 

Block producers stake their EOS tokens on the network to ensure the security and proper functioning of the ecosystem. If they act maliciously, they’ll lose their stake and an alternative block producer will take over. Community voting also selects alternative block producers, and a total of 84 alternative block producers are chosen to be on standby mode. If  delegates can’t handle the processes due to a machine failure, alternative block producers take their place.

Block producers use an algorithm known as Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (ABFT). It functions as a secondary construction for the EOS consensus algorithm for block creation to achieve finality and a single source of truth. Block producers in the DPoS and the second layer of the ABFT consensus mechanism allow for much faster block confirmation times and transaction throughput.

The EOS mainnet has achieved an all-time high throughput of 4,000 TPS (

) to date. However, the network can handle up to 10,000 TPS with EOSIO 1.0, and with more updates in the development road map, the transaction throughput and system efficiency will increase.

Another exciting and innovative aspect of the EOS blockchain is feeless transactions. Unlike other smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, there are no fees when using a DApp or interacting with a smart contract. These feeless transactions are possible because of prepaid network resources that the developers pay for with their stake when they deploy a smart contract on the EOS blockchain. 

In the traditional Web 2.0 world, developers pay for resources required for their application, such as servers, network bandwidth and domain,  to deploy and run their application. The users can access these applications free of cost using their browser. 

The same model is being applied here on the EOS blockchain, where the developers stake their EOS tokens in order to secure an equivalent amount of resources for their DApp. There are three resources that the developers can use on EOS: 

Based on the size of the stake, the developers can secure an equivalent amount of resources from the EOS network to host and run their DApps. Users can use the DApp without any transaction fees. Since the developers can unstake their tokens from the network, the EOS protocol substitutes inflation for transaction fees. 

EOS blockchain is known to be the ultimate “Ethereum Killer,” but is it true? 

 DApp development and end-user experience has a host of different problems, mainly due to the limitations of the underlying platform. These limitations include lack of scalability and proper tool set, with high transaction costs associated with everyday activities like user onboarding. Although it is hoped Ethereum 2.0 will address these issues, it remains to be seen if the network upgrade will do so. 

If we look at the numbers, the Ethereum network transaction fee has snowballed in recent years, affecting DApps on the network. People using DApps from the Ethereum ecosystem frequently complain about the high transaction costs on the network. 

 (PoW) consensus algorithm, which is secure but at the same time highly inefficient. The average block time of Ethereum as of writing is 13.23 seconds, and the network can handle up to 15 transactions per second. 

Now, let’s compare Ethereum to the EOS blockchain, which has a DPoS consensus algorithm that is very efficient and robust for an institutional-grade smart contract platform. The 21 delegated block producers validate all the transactions and secure the network. Unlike Ethereum, the EOS blockchain has a subsecond block time and can handle up to 10,000 transactions per second. 

EOS blockchain has the level of scale required for an ideal smart contract platform. Another significant distinction between EOS blockchain and Ethereum’s is the design approach which the EOS team has taken to improve the end-user experience of DApps. Unlike Ethereum, end-users don’t have to pay any transaction fees (feeless model). These fees are already paid for with the stake that the developers have pledged to acquire EOS network resources. 

Due to this feeless design approach, we can already see the results. There are 2,782 DApps on Ethereum, while EOS has only 328 DApps — which seems like a small number at first. But if you look at the daily transaction volume, Ethereum DApps handle s190.33K transactions in 24 hours, while EOS DApps accommodates 538.44K transactions within the same period. 

This significantly high transaction volume bodes well for EOS. EOS blockchain also has a developer-focused approach, with EOSIO and various SDKs and libraries to get started. More developers means more DApps, and more users using the EOS blockchain platform. 

EOS blockchain was developed by Block.one, a company registered in the Cayman Islands. The white paper for the project was released in May 2017. Block.one distributed 1 billion EOS tokens in a unique year-long ICO campaign that started in June 2017, right after the release of the original white paper. 

The ICO campaign was wildly successful, with the company raising over $4 billion from the ICO backers. The EOS tokens were launched as ERC-20 tokens because the EOS mainnet wasn’t live at the time. The EOS mainnet, Dawn 1.0, was released in June 2018 and is currently operating under version 2.0.8.

Daniel Larimer served as the CTO of Block.one, andHe resigned on January 10, 2021. Larimer was the founder of Bitshares and Steem. He also developed the DPoS algorithm for the EOS blockchain, which was already a part of Bitshares and Steem, and was refined further for the EOS blockchain. 

Since its inception, the EOS token has yielded phenomenal returns of over 398.29%. At the time of launch, one EOS token was priced at $2.29, achieving its all-time high value of $22.89 within one year.

The EOS token price did suffer in the previous bearish markets, but it’s slowly getting back on track and we can see some significant upward spikes. We can also expect some corrections during the current bearish market, but EOS will undoubtedly rebound due to its strong fundamentals. 

The EOS ecosystem is slowly taking off. In the current 

 boom, we see many Defi projects deployed on EOS instead of Ethereum. This section will discuss some of the most promising EOS ecosystems projects as of this writing. 

EOS had a successful launch, but over the years it has had a bumpy ride. Part of the reason is the lack of institutional interest in building decentralized applications, and the lack of a robust developer community. For this reason, Proof-of-Work (PoW)-based blockchains that are not well-suited to building large-scale DApps, such as Ethereum, have been the mainstay computing platforms and operating systems. 

However, networks such as Ethereum currently maintain a slow TPS rate and may not be able to handle enough transactions in the future... especially given the increasing number of users in the crypto industry. Ethereum’s 2.0 upgrade is on its way, but nothing is yet finalized in the race toward becoming the most preferred blockchain platform. 

EOSIO is expected to handle millions of transactions per second at a low cost. The core of EOSIO lies in its limitless scalability. Also, the EOS network is based on DPoS, making transactions on the network free, fast and secure. Overall, it’s definitely a network to keep your eye on.

What Is EOS Crypto?

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