This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.

Latest Prices

CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) 1,127 −12.0 ▼ 1.1% Bitcoin (BTC) $23,901 −212.3 ▼ 0.9% Ethereum (ETH) $1,646 +2.6 ▲ 0.2% S&P 500 futures 4,019.25 +20.3 ▲ 0.5% FTSE 100 7,914.89 −15.7 ▼ 0.2% Treasury Yield 10 Years 3.92% ▼ 0.0 BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices, as of 7 a.m. ET (11 a.m. UTC)

Top Stories

Noted growth investor Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has added more than 213,000 Coinbase (COIN) shares worth about $13 million to its ARK Innovation (ARRK) and Next Generation (ARKW) exchange-traded funds. The 181,972 shares added to ARKK appear to be Ark Invest's biggest single purchase of Coinbase's shares this year. Earlier this week, Coinbase reported quarterly earnings that beat expectations, but its stock slipped 1.4% on Wednesday as crypto assets experienced a broad pullback. The crypto exchange’s stock is up 82% year to date to $61.18, but down from its closing-day peak of $342 in November 2021.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said a $1.02 billion deal by Binance’s U.S. wing to purchase assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital may be unlawful. Specifically, the redistribution of crypto assets to account holders – particularly Voyager’s VGX token – could amount to the sale of unregistered securities, according to the SEC. The sale of Voyager to Binance.US received almost universal approval from creditors on Wednesday, with 97% of them voting in favor of the deal.

Music streaming service Spotify may be dipping its toe into Web3 with a new pilot involving “token-enabled playlists,” allowing holders of non-fungible tokens to connect their wallets and listen to curated music. Spotify is offering this exclusively to token holders in the Fluf, Moonbirds, Kingship and Overlord communities for a three-month testing period. Spotify told CoinDesk that it "routinely conducts a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience."

Chart of the Day

• The table shows the probabilities for the Federal Reserve rate hikes over the coming months.
• Early this month, traders were confident that the Fed would hike its benchmark interest rate just by 25 basis points in March, but now they see a 26% chance of a 50 basis point rate hike in March.
• Traders see a 28% chance of rates rising as high as 5.75% in July from the current 4.75%.
• The Fed tightening is now seen extending into the third quarter, Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex and the author of the Marc to Market blog, wrote in the daily newsletter.
• Aggressive repricing of continued Fed rate hikes might put pressure on risky assets, including cryptocurrencies.

- Omkar Godbole

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