ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, options traders expect the S&P 500 index to fluctuate by 1.3% this Friday, which will be the largest fluctuation on a non-farm payroll data release day since the regional bank crisis in March 2023. Citigroup data shows that the S&P 500 index is expected to have a two-way fluctuation of 1.4% on Wednesday, marking the highest implied volatility since the day after the U.S. presidential election on November 6, 2023.The increase in market volatility is mainly influenced by two factors: the uncertainty of the Trump administration's tariff policy and the upcoming non-farm payroll report. Trump recently warned of potential future economic fluctuations and defended his plan to significantly raise tariffs, but U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo indicated that Trump is considering some tariff relief measures, which has slightly eased market sentiment.The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX) is currently at its highest level since December of last year, breaking through the 20-point mark. Economists expect that U.S. employment will increase by 160,000 in February, the unemployment rate will remain at 4%, and average hourly earnings will rise by 4.1% year-on-year. UBS equity derivatives strategist Grinkov stated, "Macroeconomic factors are becoming more important; this is a higher volatility environment."

ChainCatcher news, according to QCP Asia analysis, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant volatility this week, with BTC rising to 94K before falling back to 83K, currently fluctuating around 88K. The market is influenced by macro factors such as Trump's reserve plan, the escalation of the US-Canada-China trade war, and tariff adjustments, closely following stock market fluctuations.This Friday will see the first White House crypto summit, but lacking specific policy support, market sentiment is cautious, and investors are watching whether it will act as a price catalyst or trigger a larger sell-off.In addition, the high-yield spread of US bonds has widened to 290bps, and the Atlanta Fed's GDP forecast has turned negative to -2.8%. The market is focused on Friday's non-farm payroll data and next week's CPI to assess the macroeconomic outlook.

ChainCatcher news reports that, according to 4E monitoring, the U.S. stock market ended February poorly due to weak economic data and the impact of Trump's tariffs, with the Nasdaq leading the decline by nearly 4%, marking the worst monthly performance since April last year. The S&P 500 index fell by a cumulative 1.42%, and the Dow Jones by 1.58%. The seven tech giants saw a continuous decline in the first four days of last week, with stock prices plummeting collectively, only rebounding on Friday. For the week, Tesla had the largest drop of 13.27%, followed by Nvidia with a 7.07% decline, resulting in a total market value loss of $2.2 trillion for the seven giants compared to the December peak.The cryptocurrency market experienced significant volatility, plummeting last week due to U.S. tariff policies, weak macro data, the unlocking of SOL institutions, and the largest outflow of spot ETFs for the week. Bitcoin fell to a low of around $78,000, the lowest since November 11 of last year. ETH and SOL crashed, with many altcoins dropping to all-time lows. Amid extreme market panic, Trump personally "called out" on Sunday, advocating for BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, and ADA to be included in the national cryptocurrency strategic reserves. The market quickly rebounded on the news, with Bitcoin briefly surpassing $95,000. As of the time of writing, Bitcoin rose 8.5% to $92,969, ETH increased 11% to $2,439, SOL surged 20% to $171, ADA skyrocketed 60% to $1.06, and XRP rose 24% to $2.78.In the foreign exchange and commodities sector, the dollar overall trended downward, with a cumulative decline of about 0.8% in February. International oil prices fell after two consecutive months of increase, with a cumulative drop of over 3% in February, marking the largest monthly decline since September last year. Spot gold plummeted over 2.7% this week, but still saw a cumulative increase of over 2.1% in February.Several U.S. economic data points performed poorly, raising investor concerns about the risk of stagflation. Last week, the U.S. January core PCE met expectations, somewhat alleviating inflation worries. This week, key focuses include the U.S. February non-farm payroll report, the Federal Reserve's economic conditions beige book, Powell's speech, and the White House cryptocurrency summit.

ChainCatcher news: After the U.S. inflation data met expectations on Friday, the dollar held near a two-week high, and the argument between Trump and Zelensky also boosted the dollar's safe-haven appeal. U.S. Treasury bonds recorded their strongest start to a year since the COVID-19 crisis in early 2020, with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which approached 4.8% in January, now close to 4.2%, and the two-year Treasury yield dipped below 4% during the day for the first time in four months. U.S. stocks nearly erased their gains for 2025 but rebounded sharply on Friday, narrowing the losses for the second consecutive week. Here are the key points the market will focus on in the new week:Monday 22:45: U.S. February S&P Global Manufacturing PMI finalMonday 23:00: U.S. February ISM Manufacturing PMI, U.S. January Construction Spending MoMTuesday 21:50: 2025 FOMC voter, St. Louis Fed President Bullard speaksWednesday 3:20: FOMC permanent voter, New York Fed President Williams speaks at Bloomberg Investment ForumWednesday 21:15: U.S. February ADP Employment ChangeWednesday 22:45: U.S. February S&P Global Services PMI finalThursday 1:00: Federal Reserve releases Beige BookThursday 20:30: U.S. February Challenger Job CutsThursday 21:30: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending March 1Friday 21:30: U.S. February Nonfarm Payrolls, Unemployment Rate, Average Hourly Earnings YoY and MoMFriday 23:45: FOMC permanent voter, New York Fed President Williams and Fed Governor Bowman participate in a panel discussion at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business organized U.S. Monetary Policy ForumU.S. February nonfarm payroll data will be released on Friday, which could be a key indicator affecting the direction of U.S. interest rates. Economists estimate that the U.S. economy added 133,000 jobs in February, down from 143,000 in January; the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 4%, while average hourly earnings are expected to increase by 0.3% month-over-month, down from 0.5% in January. The January PCE report is the last inflation data that Federal Reserve officials will receive before their next policy meeting on March 18-19. After cutting rates by 100 basis points in three consecutive meetings at the end of 2024, the Federal Reserve is almost certain to keep rates steady in this year's second consecutive meeting.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, S&P Global Market Intelligence indicates that next Friday's U.S. monthly employment report (including non-farm payroll data) will provide the latest clues about the strength of the labor market.Although January's data showed that job growth was below expectations, it also indicated that the unemployment rate fell from 4.1% to 4.0%, and wage growth increased from 3.8% to 4.1%.Therefore, labor data is widely regarded as supporting the Federal Reserve's shift to a slower pace of interest rate cuts this year, "although more signs are needed to indicate how the economy has fared since the presidential election."

ChainCatcher news, Bitcoin mining company Stronghold announced that its shareholders voted "in favor" of the upcoming merger between Stronghold and Bitfarms Ltd. by an overwhelming majority. The merger agreement and plan are set to be signed on August 21, 2024, and will be revised thereafter.After the merger agreement proposal is approved, the company expects the merger to be completed by March 2025, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining closing conditions. The final report of the special shareholders' meeting results will be submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the form of an 8-K.

ChainCatcher news, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company BitFuFu announced that it has signed a final agreement to acquire a Bitcoin mining facility in Oklahoma, with an operational scale of 51MW and a transaction price of $400,000/MW, funded by cash and common stock from BitFuFu's balance sheet.It is reported that with the deployment of the AntMiner S21 series mining machines, the average cash cost of mining one Bitcoin at this site will be as low as $18,000 (excluding depreciation).

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings announced on February 18 that it has completed the acquisition of a wind farm in Texas. The wind farm has a rated power generation capacity of 114 megawatts and a grid connection capacity of 240 megawatts.MARA plans to use the wind farm to power its Bitcoin mining operations and will utilize the latest generation of ASIC miners. The company's CEO Fred Thiel stated that after this acquisition, MARA's total power generation capacity will reach 136 megawatts. As of now, MARA holds 45,659 Bitcoins.

ChainCatcher news, DeFi asset management platform UFarm.Digital announced the completion of a $500,000 early seed round financing. The platform launched on the Arbitrum blockchain, and the new funds will be used to build a privacy-centric privacy layer and support cross-chain capabilities. Additionally, its roadmap reveals plans to explore zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology for KYC verification.

ChainCatcher news, according to CME FedWatch data, after the release of the U.S. non-farm payroll data, the probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 25 basis points in March dropped from 14.5% to 8.5%, while the probability of keeping rates unchanged rose from 85.5% to 91.5%.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, analyst Anstey stated that the strong performance of January's non-farm payroll data confirms expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue to maintain a wait-and-see attitude. With the labor market remaining resilient, Federal Reserve policymakers are unlikely to be eager to restart the rate-cutting process.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the non-farm payroll employment increased by 261,000 in November, revised up by 49,000 from 212,000; the non-farm payroll employment in December was revised up by 51,000 from 256,000 to 307,000. After the revisions, the total increase in employment for November and December is 100,000 higher than before the revisions.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, the U.S. January seasonally adjusted non-farm payrolls recorded 143,000, significantly lower than the market expectation of 170,000, marking a new low since October of last year.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, based on the expectations of major investment banks, the forecast range for non-farm payrolls is between 60,000 and 250,000, with most expectations concentrated in the range of 140,000 to 200,000, and the market consensus is an increase of 170,000;The market consensus for the unemployment rate is 4.1% (accounting for 68%), followed by 4.2% (accounting for 24%), 4.0% (accounting for 6%), and 4.3% and 4.5% (accounting for 1% each);The market consensus for the year-on-year average hourly wage growth rate is 3.8% (accounting for 49%), followed by 3.7% and 3.9% (accounting for 28% and 14% respectively);The market consensus for the month-on-month average hourly wage growth rate is 0.3% (accounting for 75%), followed by 0.4% (accounting for 21%).When the data falls within a less expected range, its impact on the market is greater.

ChainCatcher news, according to CME's "FedWatch" data, before the release of the U.S. non-farm payroll data at 21:30 tonight, the probability of the Federal Reserve cutting rates by 25 basis points in March is 14.5%, while the probability of keeping rates unchanged is 85.5%.The probability of the Federal Reserve cumulatively cutting rates by 50 basis points by May is 3.7%, the probability of a cumulative cut of 25 basis points is 32.8%, and the probability of keeping rates unchanged is 63.4%.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, the financial website Forexlive indicates that the January non-farm payrolls are likely to show better-than-expected numbers. Another factor to keep in mind is the wildfires in California in January, which may cause temporary impacts.

ChainCatcher news, JPMorgan stated that the U.S. non-farm payroll data to be released later on Friday must be just right, neither too hot nor too cold, for the U.S. stock market to continue rising.The trading department led by Andrew Taylor indicated that if the number of new jobs is below 150,000, the stock market will decline, while if the number exceeds 230,000, it will also put pressure on the stock market, as this would increase bets on the Federal Reserve having to raise interest rates.They noted that in a pessimistic scenario, "the risk is that the cooling of the job market happens faster than expected, which would drag down spending." They predict that a figure as low as 110,000 would cause the S&P 500 index to drop by 1.5%, as it suggests that concerns surrounding global trade are impacting the U.S. economy at a faster pace than anticipated.

ChainCatcher News, the United States will release the January non-farm payroll report tonight at 21:30 Beijing time. Economists generally predict an increase of 170,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate expected to remain stable at 4.1%.

ChainCatcher news, Pepperstone strategist Michael Brown stated in a report that from the perspective of the Federal Reserve's policy, it is hard to imagine that the U.S. employment report will be a game changer.Federal Reserve Chairman Powell pointed out that policymakers need to see real progress on inflation or some degree of weakness in the labor market before considering another rate cut. For the market, the employment report may be a situation where "good news is good news" or vice versa. The market is focused on the potential economic situation rather than any potential policy implications.

ChainCatcher news, according to Newsfile, Bitcoin mining company HIVE Digital announced the completion of a $56 million deal to acquire a partially completed 200 megawatt (MW) Bitcoin mining facility in Paraguay's Iguazu from Canadian miner Bitfarms.HIVE signed a binding letter of intent with Bitfarms and expects to expand its Bitcoin mining hash rate to 25 EH/s in September through this acquisition, utilizing Paraguay's low-cost renewable hydroelectric power.The $56 million acquisition includes a $25 million upfront payment expected to be made upon completion in the first quarter, with the remaining $31 million to be paid in six equal installments over the next six months.The acquired mining facility will be developed in two phases, with the first phase scheduled for completion on April 1, 2025, and currently 80% complete. This initial phase includes HIVE covering the remaining costs needed to complete the power connection, which is expected to add approximately 6 EH/s of Bitcoin mining capacity and will be operational in the second quarter. The second phase is planned for completion on August 31, 2025, and will integrate water-cooled Bitmain S21+ ASICs to provide an additional 6.5 EH/s. HIVE estimates the completion cost to be $400,000 per megawatt, funded by existing cash and Bitcoin reserves.