BTC Retail Demand Provides Firm Support in Weaker Crypto Market

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)

Bitcoin and most major cryptocurrencies are weaker after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a gauge of institutional activity, denied reports of futures trading linked to XRP and SOL. Traditional markets are also holding their breath ahead of the Bank of Japan’s expected interest rate hike on Friday.

Despite BTC’s continued range play above $100,000, retail demand remains strong. Glassnode’s shrimp-crab cohort, which includes addresses with up to 10 BTC, absorbed 1.9 times the newly mined supply last month, totaling more than 25,600 BTC. Meanwhile, long-term holders have slowed down their spending and profit-taking activities, indicating a cautious but firm commitment to their investments.

Still, falling below $100,000 could prove costly. According to Jake Ostrovskis, OTC trader at Wintermute, that would “frame Monday’s opening as a news selling event and the narrative could change pretty quickly.”

Reports suggest that the number of whale wallets containing between 1 million and 10 million XRP has risen to an all-time high of 2,083, indicating increased accumulation and confidence in their future performance.

In the world of innovation, talk about Bitcoin Synths is gaining traction on X. These synthetic assets allow users to benefit from Bitcoin price movements without actually owning the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin synths can be traded or used as collateral in lending protocols, avoiding the complexities associated with wrapped tokens and specialized bridges.

Ethereum’s Layer 2 protocols are also making headlines with record transaction volumes, even as concerns persist that their capacity is approaching limits.

On the macroeconomic front, recent data from the Department of Labor shows that the “total tenant rent” index, a proxy for housing inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose at a slower pace last quarter . The data suggests that recent inflation concerns may be overblown and that the Federal Reserve could move away from its hawkish forecast, which would be a positive sign for risk assets. Stay alert!

What to watch

• Crypto
• Macro
  • January 23, 8:30 am: The US Department of Labor releases the Weekly Unemployment Insurance Claims Report for the week ending January 18.
    • Estimated initial unemployment claims. 215K compared to the previous one. 217K.
  • January 23, 10:00 am: The National Association of Realtors releases the December 2024 US Existing Home Sales report.
    • Estimation of sales of existing homes. 4.16 million compared to the previous one. 4.15 million.
    • Previous month-on-month sales of existing homes. 4.8%.
  • January 23, 4:30 pm: The Federal Reserve releases report H.4.1, the central bank’s balance sheet, for the week ending January 22.
    • Total Forecast Reserves 6.83 billion dollars.
  • January 23, 6:30 pm: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications releases the December 2024 consumer price index (CPI) report.
    • Previous month-on-month inflation rate. 0.6%.
    • Est. year-on-year core inflation rate. 3% compared to the previous one. 2.7%.
    • Previous year-on-year inflation rate. 2.9%.
  • January 23, 10:00 pm: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) releases its Monetary Policy Statement.
    • Estimated interest rate decision. 0.5% compared to the previous one. 0.25%.

symbolic events

• Governance votes and calls
  • Morpho DAO is looking at reducing incentives by 30% across all networks and assets.
  • Yearn DAO is looking into funding and backing a subDAO called Bearn to focus on building and launching products on Berachain.
  • Frax DAO is discussing a $5 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by US President Donald Trump’s family.
  • January 23: Livepeer (LPT) hosts a Core Dev call.
  • January 24: Arbitrum BoLD activation vote deadline. BoLD allows anyone to participate in validation and defend against malicious claims about the state of an Arbitrum chain.
  • January 24: Hedera (HBAR) hosts a community call at 11 a.m.
• Unlock
  • January 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.
  • January 31: Jupiter (JUP) will unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.
• Token releases
  • January 23: Sky (SKY) is listed on Bitget.
  • January 23: Animecoin (ANIME) launches, with claims starting at 8 am. The token will be listed on multiple exchanges including Binance, OKX, and KuCoin.

Conferences:

symbolic talk

By Francisco Rodríguez

• Azuki, a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), today introduces its Animecoin (ANIME) on Ethereum and Arbitrum. The token was announced on January 13.
• An airdrop will cover Azuki NFT holders, Hyperliquid HYPE shares, some Arbitrum ecosystem participants, and Kaito Yappers.
• It will also include certain anime communities and BNB token holders who, between January 17 and January 20, subscribed to Simple Earn with their tokens on Binance.
• The debut builds on a growing trend of NFT collections launching their own tokens, a trend that began in 2021 when Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched ApeCoin.
• Other examples include DeGods’ DUST and Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU tokens, which have a market capitalization of $1.6 billion.
• Other signs indicate that the NFT market is heating up, with Nansen recently noting that a Crypto Punk sold for 170 ETH (around $540,000), while an Azuki sold for 165 ETH. The Azuki NFT had been purchased a month earlier for 105 ETH.

Derivatives positioning

• The cumulative volume delta indicator reveals that major cryptocurrencies, with the exception of TON, have seen net selling pressure in the perpetual futures markets over the past 24 hours.
• Block flows on Deribit and Paradigm included long positions in short-term BTC puts of $100,000, $95,000, and $70,000. One entity purchased ETH at $2.9k.
• BTC and ETH front-end calls now trade on par with puts.

Market movements:

• BTC is down 4.1% since 4 pm ET on Wednesday to $102,020 (24 hours: -2.71%)
• ETH is down 3.85% to $3,206.18 (24 hours: -2.83%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 3.61% to 3,799.21 (24 hours: -3.58%)
• CESR Composite Ether Participation Rate Down 15 Basis Points to 3.15%
• BTC funding rate is -0.0019% (-2.08% annualized) on OKX

• DXY remains unchanged at 108.25
• Gold falls 0.35% to $2,761.10 an ounce
• Silver falls 0.73% to $30.57 per ounce
• The Nikkei 225 closed up 0.79% at 39,958.87
• Hang Seng closed down 0.4% at 19,700.56
• FTSE unchanged at 8,538.7
• Euro Stoxx 50 unchanged at 5203.6
• DJIA closed +0.3% at 44,156.73
• The S&P 500 closed +0.61% at 6,086.37
• Nasdaq closed +1.28% at 20,009.34
• The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.12% at 25,311.5
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.21% at 2,297.32
• The 10-year US Treasury bond rises 3 basis points to 4.59%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures down 0.19% to 6,109.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures down 0.56% at 21,876.75
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average index futures unchanged at 44,384.00

Bitcoin Statistics:

• BTC Domain: 58.59
• Ratio between Ethereum and Bitcoin: 0.031
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 781 EH/s
• Hash price (spot): $58.9
• Total fees: 8.5 BTC/$876,410
• CME Futures Open Interest: 188,396 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 37.1 oz
• BTC market capitalization against gold: 10.56%

Technical analysis

• BTC’s pullback from Monday’s high is causing a bearish double top reversal pattern to form.
• A move below the horizontal line would confirm the pattern, which could attract more chart-guided sellers to the market.

Crypto Stocks

• MicroStrategy (MSTR): Closed Wednesday at $377.31 (-3.03%), down 1.89% to $370.19 in pre-market trading.
• Coinbase Global (COIN): Closed at $295.85 (+0.56%), down 2.59% to $288.18 in the pre-market.
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at 32.81 Canadian dollars (+4.99%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): Closed at $19.69 (+0.66%), down 2.54% to $19.19 in pre-market.
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $13.14 (+3.14%), down 1.75% to $12.91 in pre-market.
• Core Scientific (CORZ): Closed at $15.97 (+4.58%), down 1.63% to $15.71 in pre-market.
• CleanSpark (CLSK): Closed at $11.14 (+1.64%), down 2.51% to $10.86 in pre-market.
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): Closed at $25.53 (+2.24%), up 2.58% to $28.27 in pre-market.
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): Closed at $62.11 (-4.36%), up 2% to $64.90 in pre-market.
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.00 (+2.5%), down 2.07% to $40.15 in the previous market.

ETF Flows

BTC Spot ETF:

• Daily net flow: $248.7 million
• Accumulated net flows: $39.23 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1,161 million.

ETH Spot ETF

• Daily net flow: $70.7 million
• Accumulated net flows: 2,810 million dollars
• Total ETH holdings ~3,648 million.

Source: Farside Investors

night flows

Chart of the day

• The graph shows an increase in the number of active addresses on Solana.
• Addresses holding USDC led the growth as the TRUMP token frenzy gripped the market over the weekend.

while you were sleeping

in the ether