Retail Demand for BTC Gives Strong Underline to Weaker Crypto Market

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise indicated)

Bitcoin and most major cryptocurrencies were weaker after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a proxy for institutional activity, rejected reports of listing futures tied to XRP and SOL. Traditional markets are also holding their breath for an expected interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan on Friday.

Despite BTC continuing to play above the $100,000 range, retail demand remains robust. Glassnode’s The shrimp-Crab cohort, which includes addresses holding up to 10 BTC, absorbed 1.9 times the newly mined supply last month, totaling over 25,600 BTC. Meanwhile, long-term holders have slowed their spending and acquisition activities, indicating a cautious, but firm, commitment to their investments.

However, dropping below $100,000 can be expensive. According to Wintermute’s OTC trader Jake Ostrovskis, that “frames Monday’s inauguration as a sell-the-news event and the narrative can shift pretty quickly.”

Reports suggest the number of whale wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP climbed to an all-time high of 2,083, indicating increased accumulation and confidence in its future performance.

In the world of innovation, chatter goes around Bitcoin Synths is gaining traction in 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 special bridges.

Ethereum layer-2 protocols are also making headlines with record transaction volumes, even as concerns persist about their near-limit capacity.

On the macroeconomic front, recent data from the Labor Department shows that the “all tenant rent” index, an indicator of shelter inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rise at a slower rate last quarter The data suggest recent concerns about inflation may be overblown and the Fed may pivot away from its hawkish forecast, which would be a positive sign for risk assets. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto
• Macros
  • Jan. 23, 8:30 am: The US Department of Labor releasing the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for the week ended January 18.
    • Initial Unemployment Claims Est. 215K vs. Prev. 217K.
  • Jan. 23, 10:00 am: The National Association of Realtors releasing December 2024 US Existing Home Sales Report.
    • Current Home Sales Est. 4.16M vs. Prev. 4.15M.
    • Current Home Sales MoM Prev. 4.8%
  • Jan. 23, 4:30 pm: The Fed released the H.4.1 reportthe central bank’s balance sheet, for the week ended January 22.
    • Total Reserve Prev. $6.83T.
  • Jan. 23, 6:30 pm: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan releasing December 2024 Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.6%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3% vs. Prev. 2.7%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.9%
  • Jan. 23, 10:00 pm: Bank of Japan (BoJ) released. Statement on Monetary Policy.
    • Estimated Interest Rate Decision. 0.5% compared to Prev. 0.25%

Token Events

• Management votes and calls
  • Morpho DAO is discussed reducing incentives by 30% on all networks and assets.
  • The DAO is sought discussed funding and endorsing a subDAO called Bearn to focus on developing and launching Berachain products.
  • Frax DAO is discussed a $5 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by US President Donald Trump’s family.
  • Jan. 23: Livepeer (LPT) is hosting a call to Core Dev.
  • January 24: The decision of the BoLD vote on activation deadline. BoLD allows anyone to participate in verifying and defending against malicious claims on the state of the Arbitrum chain.
  • January 24: Hedera (HBAR) is hosting a community call at 11 am
• Opening
  • Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.
  • Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) unlocks 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.
• Token launched
  • Jan. 23: Sky (SKY) listed on Bitget.
  • Jan. 23: Animecoin (ANIME) will be launched, with claims starting at 8 a.m. The token will be listed on multiple exchanges including Binance, OKX and KuCoin.

Conferences:

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

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

Derivatives Positioning

• The cumulative volume delta indicator shows that the major cryptocurrencies, with the exception of TON, have experienced net selling pressure in the perpetual futures markets over the past 24 hours.
• Block flows on Deribit and Paradigm featured long positions in short-dated BTC placing at $100K, $95K and $70K. An entity bought ETH for $2.9K.
• Front-end BTC and ETH calls are now traded at par with puts.

Market Movements:

• BTC is down 4.1 % as of 4 pm ET Wednesday to $102,020 (24 hours: -2.71%)
• ETH down 3.85% to $3,206.18 (24 hours: -2.83%)
• The CoinDesk 20 fell 3.61% to 3,799.21 (24 hours: -3.58%)
• CESR Composite Ether Staking Rate down 15 bps to 3.15%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0019% (-2.08% annualized) on OKX

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

Bitcoin Stats:

• Dominance of BTC: 58.59
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.031
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 781 EH/s
• Hash price (spot): $58.9
• Total Fee: 8.5 BTC/ $876,410
• CME Futures Open Interest: 188,396 BTC
• BTC gold price: 37.1 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 10.56%

Technical Analysis

• BTC’s pullback from Monday’s high is teasing the formation of a double top bearish reversal pattern.
• A move below the horizontal line will confirm the pattern, possibly bringing more sellers led by the market chart.

Crypto Equities

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

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $248.7 million
• Consolidated net flow: $39.23 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.161 million.

Spot ETH ETF

• Daily net flow: $70.7 million
• Consolidated net flows: $2.81 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.648 million.

Source: Farside Investor

Overnight Flow

Chart of the Sun

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

While You Sleep

In Ether