Digital markets lag

Nvidia's stock hyper-ballooned, the S&P 500 smashed a new record, a venture capital titan shelled out $100 million for an Ethereum-related startup – heck, a private company not owned by Elon Musk just successfully pulled off a moon landing – and yet, crypto, of all things, is in a sour mood. Go figure.

The total crypto market capitalization, as of about 8 a.m. (EST), stood at $2.05 trillion, having shed 1.3% in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin was a few dollars shy of $51,000, shading slightly red on the week.

All of which is not to say that some "AI coins" aren't still merrily rolling along. Fetch.ai (FET) popped by another 3% in the past 24 hours alongside a continuation of AI mania as exemplified by NVIDIA's insane, off-the-coast-of-Portugal-type swell (the computer chip giant added $277 billion to its market cap) although let the record show that Worldcoin (WLD) has fallen 6% since reaching its all-time high yesterday afternoon.

In other hyped-up speculative happenings, there's the newly minted Starknet token which experienced a sharply defined downturn on Thursday. The Ethereum layer-2 network, only a couple of days removed from a ballyhooed-to-the-hilt airdrop, saw its STRK tumble from a Tuesday top of $4.41 down to about $1.90 yesterday, a monster dump that turned out to be Starknet's own private halving event. However, STRK, as of last check, at 8:30 a.m. (EST), still starts the weekend with a market cap of $1.4 billion, making it CoinGecko's 60th-largest digital asset.

Whoa, STRK is right now back knocking on the door of $2. It has notched a 7.6% gain in the past 24 hours, per CoinGecko.

Meanwhile, Houston-based Intuitive Machines' stock (LUNR) surged from $8 to $11 in after-hours Nasdaq trading sessions as it became the first company to pull off a moon landing; government agencies, like NASA, had carried out all previously successful missions. IM's "Nova-C" cargo lander, “Odysseus,” became the first U.S. spacecraft to touch down on that giant glowing thing that we all see in the sky every night in more than fifty years.

“We are on the surface and transmitting," IM’s CEO Steve Altemus declared in a statement issued from mission control. "Welcome to the moon.”

Founded in 2013, Intuitive Machines went public a year ago. After shares hit a record low in early January, the stock has since tripled (CNBC).

Possibly throwing crypto off its orbit today is the overhead force of the expiry, later today, of some $3.6 billion in Bitcoin options contracts, some portion of which will likely be exercised as traders snag profits. Or at least they could snag them, for the month, provided that between now and later this afternoon the price of the largest crypto remains above $48K (Decrypt).

Analysts had expected a pre-halving rally to kick in this week ahead of the mining rewards reduction event set for mid-April. But over the past seven days, BTC fell 2.4%.

Today's February contract expiration need not be some kind of pressurized keg of doom tucked away in a nearby cooler. But traders do want to at least be aware of the possibility of selling. Plus, there surely will be bigger fish to fry come Good Friday.

At the end of March, the CME alone has nearly $18 billion worth of contracts expiring, compared to $1.6 billion set to expire later today. The March month contracts are thought to represent mountains of pre-halving bets.

Crypto venture capital was supposed to be comatose, but no one dared explaining that to Eigen Labs which just raised $100 billion from a16z, a crypto archangel.

This infusion, revealed yesterday, will support Eigen Labs' development studio, which is working to create EigenLayer, a startup focused on Ethereum staking, or rather restaking, as Blockworks explained.

EigenLayer enables staked ETH to be redeployed for securing additional dApps within the Ethereum ecosystem, a type of extra-juice squeezing mechanism in line with how users currently can lock up liquid staking tokens like Lido’s stETH in order to earn staking points.

“Points are still sought after as users bet on EigenLayer becoming a major piece of the Ethereum ecosystem,” The Block said, citing data from Whales Market, a marketplace for online points.

Investors have traded more than $1.6 million worth of EigenLayer points at an average price of $0.14.