Bitcoin holds above $64K as China stimulus sends Conflux’s CFX, Dog memes running high

• In Asia's Friday market, dog-themed memecoins like SHIB, BONK, and FLOKI experienced significant gains, with SHIB and FLOKI up by 15% and BONK leading with a 17% increase, fueled by a return of risk appetite among investors.

• Conflux's CFX saw an 18% rise following news of liquidity injection by the People's Bank of China, with traders focusing on assets perceived as 'China beta' like CFX, dubbed the 'Chinese Ethereum', especially after its new support for stablecoins.

• Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 3%, trading above $65K with U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs seeing one of their largest inflow days at $365 million, predominantly into ARK's ARKB, while Ethereum (ETH) experienced minor outflows but still gained 4% over the week.

Friday's market in Asia went to the memes as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Bonk (BONK) posted double-digit gains and Conflux's CFX was up over 18% as the market digests the recent liquidity injection from China's central bank.

"After the initial rally in alts that took center stage last week, the market seemed to have been in rotation mode for this week," Rick Maeda, Research Analyst at Presto Research wrote in a note to CoinDesk.

"Within this series of rotations in search of the next narrative that explored verticals such as AI and memecoins, the China stimulus news from Tuesday made traders focus on coins perceived to be China beta, such as $CFX and $PHB which have both outperformed," Maeda continued. "It remains to be seen if this is a new regime here to stay or the market grasping for a narrative-based trade."

HashKey OTC CEO Li Liang pointed to improving funding rates as a sign of market recovery.

"Leading the gains are the SOL and BTC ecosystems, indicating a strong focus on meme coins as overall liquidity grows. While not nearly as explosive as meme coins on the aforementioned chains, meme coins on Ethereum, such as $PEPE and $SHIB, are also experiencing heightened interest from the market," he said.

Aside from the liquidity-induced market moves because of the perception that Conflux is the 'Chinese Ethereum', traders are also looking favorably on a recent announcement that the protocol has launched support for stablecoins through a partnership with WUSD.

While WUSD is a relatively small stablecoin (its issuer is registered as a trust in Hong Kong) there has been a recent run of stablecoin-related announcements with new products coming out from Ethena labs (UStb) and BitGo (USDS) which the market is looking favorably upon.

Dog memes lead market

Risk appetite returned after months with dog-themed memecoins leading gains in the broader crypto market. Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Floki (FLOKI) zoomed as much as 15%, while Solana-based bonk (BONK) led sector gains at 17%.

Some lesser-known dog-themed tokens based on the lesser-used Bitcoin Runes protocol also rose, indicating investors were ready to take more riskier bets.

Memecoins are heavily community-driven and jump when the market displays risk-on behavior. These create value through community engagement, humor, and shared cultural references - and tokens inspired by dogs, cats or frog surge based on what’s more trending in social circles.

ETFs continue positive inflow run

Elsewhere in crypto, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 3% as it continues to trade above $65K.

(CoinDesk Indices)

US spot bitcoin ETFs had a monster day of inflows with $365 million, according to SoSoValue, making it one of the largest days on record and bringing the weekly inflow to over $600 million.

Most of the day's inflow was focused on ARK's ARKB ETF at $113.8 million, followed by BlackRock's IBIT at $93.38 million, and Fidelity's FBTC at $74 million.

ETH ETFs didn't have the same market interest, as they saw outflows of nearly $675,000.

Ether (ETH) is up 4% in the last week, according to market data, versus 2% for BTC.