Bitcoin ETFs Continue Inflow Streak as BTC Remains Flat Amid China Holiday

Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) were flat for the first half of the east Asia trading day as markets around the region were quiet owing to public holidays in China, Hong Kong, and Korea.

China and Hong Kong are both off for China’s national holiday, which is a week-long affair in mainland China known as Golden Week and one-day in Hong Kong. Korea is closed for Armed Forces day, a new holiday the government proposed earlier this year.

BTC is trading above $63,700, down 1%, according to CoinDesk Indices data, while ETH is trading above $2,600. The CoinDesk 20, a measure of the world’s most liquid digital assets, is down 0.7%.

Markets are also mixed after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cooled expectations that another mega rate cut is coming.

“Looking forward, if the economy evolves broadly as expected, policy will move over time toward a more neutral stance. But we are not on any preset course,” Powell said. “The risks are two-sided, and we will continue to make our decisions meeting by meeting.”

“This is not a committee that feels like it’s in a hurry to cut rates quickly,” he continued.

Bettors on Polymarket are putting their money behind a 25bps rate decrease in November, giving it a 63% chance of happening, up from 42% last week.

In the U.S, BTC ETF inflows continued their positive streak, now in the green on their eighth day, clocking in at $61 million Monday, according to data from SoSoValue.

Most of that flow went into BlackRock’s IBIT, which currently leads in net inflow since its inception at $21.5 billion.

In Japan, MetaPlanet, which aims to be a locally listed crypto proxy stock like MicroStrategy announced it had purchased another 107 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 507 BTC worth $32.2 million.

As the U.S. election gets closer, political finance (PoliFi) tokens are enjoying a solid week in the green as the U.S. election ticks closer.

Data from CoinGecko says the marketcap of the category is nearly $700 million. In the last week, the MAGA token which trades under the ticket TRUMP is up 70%, while its Solana counterpart TREMP is up 33%.

Kamala Harris’ token KAMA is up 61%. Harris leads Donald Trump by 1 percentage point on Polymarket.

Given the popularity of prediction markets and crypto election betting, with election betting volume on Polymarket crossing well over $1 billion, Woo X announced today that it is adding HARRIS and TRUMP tokens from Outcome Market, a decentralized prediction market backed by Wintermute.

Elsewhere in crypto, the BIO Association, a Swiss nonprofit that looks to expand the reach of Decentralized Science (DeSci) announced the launch of its public token sale.

The Association’s BIO tokens support its decentralized biotech network, enabling community-led BioDAOs to finance and develop scientific research through DeSci.

“With DeSci, you can bypass Big Pharma and these massive gatekeepers that sometimes stop science from happening, and stop science from making new inventions and drugs that could really impact the world in a good way,” BIO protocol founder Paul Kohlhaas said in an interview with CoinDesk.

BIO’s first token sale, which saw Sora Ventures and other crypto venture capitals take part, raised over $5 million.

“Bio is essentially creating a large-scale funding model to boil the ocean for super early-stage science and make the discovery of early-stage science community-driven,” Kohlhaas continued.

The team is looking to raise $13 million with this second round.