Good morning Asia. This is what is making news in the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top news during US time and an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of the US markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Crypto markets in Asia are opening up to more stable BTC, but the tone is far from bullish. The data shows a market that has stopped bleeding, although it is not ready to accelerate. ETF flows, on-chain indicators and derivatives prices point to a holding pattern.
US ETF flows show the first stabilization in weeks, with an inflow of $56.5 million on December 9 after more than $1.1 billion in weekly redemptions throughout November, according to data compiled by SoSoValue. Glassnode’s reading is that the recovery is real but superficial. Momentum has improved, but spot CVDs (which track cumulative buying less selling pressure) remain deeply negative, derivatives positioning is defensive and on-chain activity is near the lower end of its range. Short-term holders still dominate the supply, keeping the market sensitive to volatility.
As Glassnode writes, the combination of signals shows a market that is stabilizing in price but remains structurally weak. The 14-day RSI, a momentum indicator that measures whether an asset is overbought or oversold, has returned to its midrange, indicating that Bitcoin has recovered from last week’s tense conditions.
Futures open interest is down, the volatility spread is very tight, and the options skew shows that traders are still paying for downside protection rather than positioning to the upside.
On-chain activity offers little confirmation of a stronger trend, with active address counts near cycle lows and realized cap growth of just 0.7 percent, a sign of weak capital inflows. The supply mix is equally fragile because short-term holders continue to dominate.
Taken together, the data suggests that BTC’s rally has more to do with the absence of large sales than strong demand.
Until ETF flows become consistently positive and on-chain activity strengthens, the market is likely to drift rather than follow a trend. A clearer directional move will require a behavioral change from both long-term holders and institutional allocators, neither of which is visible yet.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin is trading near $92,214 after a sharp US session reversal, a move driven by spot demand rather than leverage and seen as a sign of seller exhaustion.
ETH: Ether hovers around $3,296 after a 6% daily gain, extending its outperformance as short covering and improving sentiment boost large-cap tokens.
Gold: Gold is trading comfortably above $4,200, supported by improving US jobs data and expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut, although momentum remains limited ahead of Wednesday’s policy decision.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets traded mostly higher as investors awaited inflation data from China and a widely expected 0.25% Fed rate cut, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 rising 0.82%.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Do Kwon’s judge demands answers before passing sentence for the ‘guarantee’ that he will serve his sentence (CoinDesk)
- Securitize hires former PayPal executive as general counsel before taking company public via SPAC (The Block)
