Crypto back on the move

Crypto appears to be on the mend. Bitcoin hit $38,000, glowing green for going on 48 hours. Ethereum ticked out of trouble to reach $2,500 following an uncomfortable brush with sub-$2,000. Among Big Ten stalwarts, battered Solana (SOL) stood out for sheer stamina, nearly able to drag itself back above $100.

SOL, stung by a network outage, ranked as one of the hardest-hit large-cap coins in terms of price implosion. However, it has gained nearly 5% in the past 24 hours as of Wednesday at 8 a.m. (EST).

Additionally, No. 11 Dogecoin (DOGE) has pieced together a pair of impressive green days. The meme coin has not been under a dime since it went parabolic to $0.74 last April. On Monday, DOGE dipped toward $0.12 but at last check was close to $0.15.

Checking some other big movers, we’re looking at quite a pair – Polygon (MATIC) and Near (NEAR) – both surging over 11% in 24 hours amidst renewed demand for next-generation layer-1 blockchain assets (CoinDesk).

Looming regulatory and monetary policy clouds (dark ones) as well as Russia-related worries (BTC mining bans, possibly the start of a conflict on the border with Ukraine) have turned crypto into a dumping ground over the past week.

But the selling pressure in the global crypto market eased on Monday (Bloomberg).

The Big Ten is a triage ward, tense, grisly but filled with survival stories. Ethereum's gaping wounds warrant attention.

ETH, as of Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. (EST), was $2,544-ish, having declined 19% over seven days. The second-largest token took a bath alright – in a tub filled with twice as much blood as the one in which Bitcoin bathed.

But Solana and Cardano are worst off. The latter is down 27%, the former, down 31%.

The U.S. Federal Reserve issues its policy statement later this afternoon, concluding a two-day meeting.

Most likely, the powerful monetary governing body will signal an interest rate hike is imminent, probably coming in March, and also that further policy tightening is still to come, a universally expected given in the investment thesis of nearly every equity trader, retail and institutional alike, going back to the summer.

Do not expect this week's stock market correction to cause the Fed to second-guess its tightening course, economists and analysts said today.

Dow futures were up as of 7:15 a.m. (EST). Cryptocurrency markets, viewed as mostly lumped in with volatile risk assets (although suddenly not correlating with big tech stocks), were also up, but, let's face it, could turn on a dime.

“The Fed needs to tighten so they can have a better handle on inflation,” said one strategist, convinced that a grieving stock market's shock, anger and sadness (over losing its "Fed put") has fast-forwarded on to acceptance.

"Who would have thought that JPEGs would be the ultimate hedge against the market nuking," tweeted The Block Research's Thomas Bialek, tongue-in-cheekily underscoring how, as of Monday, the value of less liquid, idiosyncratic non-fungible tokens (NFTs) had outperformed ETH.

Also surging of late are volumes for NFT marketplaces. OpenSea set a record for monthly volumes this week ($3.2 billion).

"The NFT market appears to be offering a sort of oasis for investors and speculators," The Block said, noting how during the crypto drawdown the floor price for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) tokens rose 8%.

Some hastily created phony coins purportedly connected with the purple McDonaldland creature "Grimace" wound up pumping 200,000% after some stupid tweet-jesting by the giant fast-food company and Elon Musk. "Opportunistic actors made quick money creating a token named after a burger-loving purple tastebud," CoinDesk said.

Hat's Off: Melania Trump's auction of one of her hats, alongside an NFT version of it, definitely didn't go as planned, The Washington Post reported. The former First Lady's website exclusively accepted bids in SOL as that coin was tanking early in the week. The auction appeared to close early Tuesday morning (a day earlier than advertised) with the hat and its lot going for $162K, or roughly $90K below the ask.

Cause Celeb: Kanye West wants royalties from Paparazzi photos, with the help of NFTs (Cointelegraph). “You don't give us any percentage of what you make off us, off our kids,” West was overheard saying to one photographer. “And I'm going to change that.”