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The month of February was filled with investors’ hope that an earlier-than-expected Federal Reserve policy pivot would occur, but this sentiment faded as the inflation and employment data came in hotter than expected. While the start of the month was bullish for the crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC) retraced 60% of the move from February’s low at around $21,500 to the peak of $25,250. 

Nevertheless, some narrative-driven rallies still caused significant price growth in some altcoins. The leading narratives were Bitcoin NFTs, liquidity staking derivatives (LSDs) on Ethereum and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects.

Let’s review the top performing coins of the month.

Stacks (STX)

Stacks gained much attention as the hype over Ordinals kicked off at the start of the month. Gamma, a Stacks-based project, enabled the creation of Bitcoin Ordinals. However, full functionality in trading and public minting of Ordinals on Stacks is still in development.

Meanwhile, Stacks faces competition from other blockchains like Ethereum, where developers are working toward enabling Bitcoin NFT trading on Ethereum. Yuga Labs, the leading NFT firm, announced a 300-piece generative collection on Bitcoin on Feb. 27. The auction (or minting) will likely be held on Ethereum due to the lack of infrastructure on Bitcoin. Thus, as Stacks delays its development of making Ordinals accessible, more liquid chains are taking advantage of other solutions.

The month of February was filled with investors’ hope that an earlier-than-expected Federal Reserve policy pivot would occur, but this sentiment faded as the inflation and employment data came in hotter than expected. While the start of the month was bullish for the crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC) retraced 60% of the move from February’s low at around $21,500 to the peak of $25,250. 

Nevertheless, some narrative-driven rallies still caused significant price growth in some altcoins. The leading narratives were Bitcoin NFTs, liquidity staking derivatives (LSDs) on Ethereum and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects.

Let’s review the top performing coins of the month.

Stacks (STX)

Stacks gained much attention as the hype over Ordinals kicked off at the start of the month. Gamma, a Stacks-based project, enabled the creation of Bitcoin Ordinals. However, full functionality in trading and public minting of Ordinals on Stacks is still in development.

Meanwhile, Stacks faces competition from other blockchains like Ethereum, where developers are working toward enabling Bitcoin NFT trading on Ethereum. Yuga Labs, the leading NFT firm, announced a 300-piece generative collection on Bitcoin on Feb. 27. The auction (or minting) will likely be held on Ethereum due to the lack of infrastructure on Bitcoin. Thus, as Stacks delays its development of making Ordinals accessible, more liquid chains are taking advantage of other solutions.

The recent weakness in the crypto market has not invalidated the six-week-long ascending trend, even after a failed test of the channel's upper band on Feb. 21. The total crypto market capitalization remains above the psychological $1 trillion mark and, more importantly, cautiously optimistic after a new round of negative remarks from regulators.

As displayed above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has room for an additional 3.5% correction down to $1.025 trillion market capitalization while still sustaining the bullish formation.

That is excellent news considering the FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — brought down by regulators regarding the cryptocurrency industry.

Recent examples of bad news are, a United States District Court judge ruling that emojis such as the rocket ship, stock chart and money bags infer "a financial return on investment," according to a recent court filing. On Feb. 22, a federal court judge ruling on a case against Dapper Labs denied a motion to dismiss the complaint alleging that its NBA Top Shot Moments violated security laws by using such emojis to denote profit.

Outside of the U.S., on Feb. 23, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued guidance on how countries should treat crypto assets, strongly advising against giving Bitcoin a legal tender status. The paper stated, "while the supposed potential benefits from crypto assets have yet to materialize, significant risks have emerged."

The recent weakness in the crypto market has not invalidated the six-week-long ascending trend, even after a failed test of the channel's upper band on Feb. 21. The total crypto market capitalization remains above the psychological $1 trillion mark and, more importantly, cautiously optimistic after a new round of negative remarks from regulators.

As displayed above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has room for an additional 3.5% correction down to $1.025 trillion market capitalization while still sustaining the bullish formation.

That is excellent news considering the FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — brought down by regulators regarding the cryptocurrency industry.

Recent examples of bad news are, a United States District Court judge ruling that emojis such as the rocket ship, stock chart and money bags infer "a financial return on investment," according to a recent court filing. On Feb. 22, a federal court judge ruling on a case against Dapper Labs denied a motion to dismiss the complaint alleging that its NBA Top Shot Moments violated security laws by using such emojis to denote profit.

Outside of the U.S., on Feb. 23, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued guidance on how countries should treat crypto assets, strongly advising against giving Bitcoin a legal tender status. The paper stated, "while the supposed potential benefits from crypto assets have yet to materialize, significant risks have emerged."

This week on The Market Report, the resident experts at Cointelegraph discuss the recent fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) around the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance and what the CEO of Solana had to say about recent outages. 

We kick things off with this week’s top stories

Binance CEO responds to Forbes claims: ‘They don’t know how an exchange works’

In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, Forbes published an article focused on the recent “shuffling” of funds by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. However, the following day on Feb. 28, Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao took to Twitter to respond. Our experts weigh in on what CZ had to say and also what exactly the FUD surrounding Binance was. If you are a Binance user, should you be worried?

Solana CEO hoses down claims network outages caused by on-chain voting

Universities in the United Kingdom have started offering cutting-edge research programs, courses and practical experience in various aspects of blockchain technology, including cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, privacy, security and scalability. Students who graduate from these programs will be well-equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to become leaders in the field of blockchain technology and drive innovation and adoption in various industries.

Here are top five universities to study blockchain in the United Kingdom.

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, and its Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) is a leading research center in the field of alternative finance, which includes research on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. 

The CCAF conducts research on various aspects of blockchain technology, including adoption, regulation and policy. Postgraduate students at Cambridge can take blockchain courses such as “Distributed Ledger Technologies: Foundations and Applications” at the department of computer science and technology. In this 16-hour course, concepts such as consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, Bitcoin (BTC) and its variants, Ethereum and other permissionless decentralized ledger technologies are covered.

In addition, the Cambridge Digital Assets Program is a multi-year research program that intends to shed light on the quick digitalization of assets and value-transfer systems. It builds on the solid foundations of the CCAF’s prior work and current ties. It is centered around three workstreams, including:

Bitcoin (BTC) faced a showdown with a key trend line on Feb. 28 as the monthly close finally arrived.

Bitcoin "doesn't feel bullish" into February close

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD circling an area around $23,500 at the Wall Street open.

With United States stocks flat and the U.S. dollar avoiding a return to strength, eyes were on Bitcoin to preserve its gains through last-minute volatility.

“Would like to see more Bitcoin bid liquidity enter the active trading range to increase the chances of closing the Monthly candle above the 50-Month Moving Average,” monitoring resource Material Indicators wrote in one of several Twitter posts on the day.

“Volume has been weak, so at this stage doesn't feel bullish.”