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Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Whipsaws as Risk Assets Get Feel-Good Boost
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
The past 24 hours have been among the most hectic in the crypto industry for years, and this was reflected in Thursday’s bitcoin (BTC) price, which whipsawed 2% to 3% multiple times in a matter of minutes. Still, it managed to stay above the psychological $100,000 level and is is currently around $105,000.
President Trump’s rhetoric is continuing to help weaken the dollar, which generally boosts risk assets such as cryptocurrencies. The DXY index, a measure of the U.S. currency against a basket of major trade partners, has dropped to the lowest since Dec. 17, so that should give risk-on assets a feel-good boost. U.S. bond yields and WTI crude oil are also heading down, with oil below $75 a barrel, the lowest in two weeks.
On the other side of the world, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) delivered on its promise with another interest-rate increase, taking the policy rate to 0.50%, the highest in more than 16 years. That followed a very hot inflation print, with headline inflation of 3.6% from the previous year, the fastest since January 2023. The question is whether we will get a second iteration of the yen carry trade unwind that occurred in August of last year. Time will tell. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Jan. 25: First deadline for SEC decisions on proposals for four spot solana ETFs: Bitwise Solana ETF, Canary Solana ETF, 21Shares Core Solana ETF and VanEck Solana Trust, which are all sponsored by Cboe BZX Exchange.
Jan. 29: Ice Open Network (ION) mainnet launch.
Feb. 4: MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) Q4 FY 2024 earnings report.
Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 pepecoin.
Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based L2 mainnet.
Macro
Jan. 24, 4:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025 eurozone HCOB Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.
Composite PMI Est. 49.7 vs. Prev. 49.6.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 45.3 vs. Prev. 45.1.
Services PMI Est. 51.5 vs. Prev. 51.6.
Jan. 24, 4:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025’s U.K. Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.
Composite PMI Est. 50 vs. Prev. 50.4.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 47 vs. Prev. 47.
Services PMI Est. 50.9 vs. Prev. 51.1.
Jan. 24, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases January 2025’s U.S. Purchasing Managers’ Index (Flash) reports.
Composite PMI Prev. 55.4.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.6 vs. Prev. 49.4.
Services PMI Est. 56.5 vs. Prev. 56.8.
Jan. 24, 10:00 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases January U.S. consumer sentiment data.
Index of Consumer Sentiment (Final) Est. 73.2 vs. Prev. 74.
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Frax DAO is discussing a $5 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by the family of President Donald Trump.
Jan. 24: Arbitrum BoLD’s activation vote deadline. BoLD allows anyone to participate in validation and defend against malicious claims to an Arbitrum chain’s state.
Jan. 24: Hedera (HBAR) is hosting a community call at 11 a.m.
Unlocks
Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.
Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.
Conferences:
Day 12 of 12: Swiss WEB3FEST Winter Edition 2025 (Zug, Zurich, St. Moritz, Davos)
Day 5 of 5: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos-Klosters, Switzerland)
Day 1 of 2: Adopting Bitcoin (Cape Town, South Africa)
Jan. 25-26: Catstanbul 2025 (Istanbul). The first community conference for Jupiter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Solana.
Jan. 30, 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: International DeFi Day 2025 (online)
Jan 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)
Jan. 30 to Feb. 4: The Satoshi Roundtable (Dubai)
Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)
Feb. 5-6: The 14th Global Blockchain Congress (Dubai)
Feb. 6: Ondo Summit 2025 (New York).
Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)
Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.
Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong
Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong
Feb. 23 to March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver)
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
A humorous new decentralized autonomous organization, FartStrategy (FSTR) DAO, is investing user funds into FARTCOIN.
The DAO is leveraging borrowed SOL to acquire the token, offering investors a chance to gain exposure to its price movements through FSTR.
If FSTR trades below its FARTCOIN backing, token holders can vote to dissolve the DAO, redeeming their share of FARTCOIN proportionally after settling any outstanding debts.
The VINE memecoin jumped to a $200 million market capitalization less than 48 hours after issuance.
It was launched on the Solana blockchain by Rus Yusupov, one of the co-founders of the original Vine app, and introduced as a nostalgic tribute to the eponymous platform known for its six-second looping videos. Vine was a significant cultural phenomenon before closing in 2017.
There have been recent discussions around potentially reviving the app, with Yusupov and technocrat Elon Musk expressing interest in its return.
Derivatives Positioning
TRX leads growth in perpetual futures open interest in major coins.
Funding rates for majors remain below an annualized 10%, a sign the market isn’t overly speculative despite BTC trading near record highs on optimism about Trump’s crypto policies.
BTC and ETH call skews have firmed up, with block flows featuring outright longs in higher strike BTC calls and a bull call spread in ETH, involving calls at strikes $5K and $6K.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 2 % from 4 p.m. ET Thursday to $105,450.57 (24hrs: +3.43%)
ETH is up 4.96% at $3,409.62 (24hrs: +6.18%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 2.4% to 3,988.16 (24hrs: +4.79%)
CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bp to 3.16%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.58% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.48% at 107.53
Gold is up 0.68% at $2,775.28/oz
Silver is up 1.21% to $30.86/oz
Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 39,931.98
Hang Seng closed +1.86% to 20,066.19
FTSE is down 0.33% at 8,537.12
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.73% at 5,255.47
DJIA closed on Thursday +0.92% to 44,565.07
S&P 500 closed +0.53 at 6,118.71
Nasdaq closed +0.22% at 20,053.68
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.48% at 25,434.08
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.57% at 2,310.35
U.S. 10-year Treasury was down 13 bps at 4.64%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.13% at 6,143.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.56% at 22,005.50
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 44,709.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 58.51 (-0.11%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.032 (0.68%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 784 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $61.0
Total Fees: 6.8 BTC/ $104,070
CME Futures Open Interest: 191,645
BTC priced in gold: 38.1 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 10.83%
Technical Analysis
Ether seems have chalked out a falling wedge pattern, characterized by two converging trendlines, representing a series of lower highs and lower lows.
The converging nature of trendlines indicates that sellers are slowly losing grip.
A breakout is said to represent a bullish trend reversal.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $373.12 (-1.11%), up 2.55% at $382.62 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $296.01 (+0.05%), up 2.16% at $302.39 in pre-market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$33.94 (+3.44%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.95 (+1.32%), up 1.8% at $20.31 in pre-market.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.99 (-1.14%), up 2.62% at $13.33 in pre-market.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.34 (+2.32%), up 1.04% at $16.51 in pre-market.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.41 (+2.42%), up 2.19% at $11.67 in pre-market.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $25.65 (+0.47%), up 1.75% at $26.10 in pre-market.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $61.15 (-1.55%), down 10.89% at $54.49 in pre-market.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $44 (+7.32%), up 0.75% at $44.33 in pre-market.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $188.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $39.42 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.169 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: -$14.9 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.79 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.663 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The market capitalization of Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, has flattened near $138 billion.
The USDC supply continues to increase and has risen to nearly $52 billion this week, the highest since September 2022.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin Steady Near $104K After Bank of Japan Delivers Hawkish Rate Hike (CoinDesk): Bitcoin held steady above $104,000 in early Asian hours Friday despite the Bank of Japan’s rate hike as markets eyed President Trump’s Thursday executive order on crypto and potential U.S. policy changes.
Trump Issues Crypto Executive Order to Pave U.S. Digital Assets Path (CoinDesk): President Trump issued a pro-crypto executive order, directing the creation of a digital asset framework, banning CBDC development and considering a national digital asset reserve.
Vitalik Buterin Calls for Added Focus on Ether as Part of the Network’s Scaling Plans (CoinDesk): In a Thursday post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined strategies to boost the value of ether including using it as collateral, implementing fee-burning incentives and increasing temporary transaction data called blobs.
Japan Hikes Rates, Solidifying Exit From Rock-Bottom Borrowing Costs (Bloomberg): The Bank of Japan raised its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.5% on Friday, the highest in 17 years, strengthening the yen and lifting 10-year bond yields to 1.23%.
U.S. Stocks at Most Expensive Relative to Bonds Since Dotcom Era (Financial Times): Stocks in the S&P 500 hit record valuations, with the equity risk premium turning negative for the first time since 2002 driven by soaring demand for dominant tech companies.
Trump 2.0 Is Going Well for China So Far. Can the Honeymoon Last? (CNN): In a Thursday interview, President Trump called tariffs a “tremendous power” but suggested deals could avert tougher measures. Beijing cautiously welcomed the reprieve, eyeing negotiations while bracing for future tensions.
In the Ether
Litecoin (LTC) tried to punch above $88 during Monday’s trading session, but met a wall of sell orders near that level.
The token has since retreated to $85.21, down 3.17% since the session’s peak and 1.5% in the last 24-hour period. That stumble erased the week’s slim gains and set a new line in the sand for bulls.
The drop came at a time in which bitcoin (BTC) has been its dominance increase, while its volatility dropped below the 40 mark in a potential sign of incoming action.
Technical Analysis Overview
Litecoin’s price swung significantly in the last 24-hour period, covering a $3.05 range, or roughly 3.5%. The token encountered stiff resistance between $88.00 and $88.42, where sellers stepped in heavily, particularly during late evening trading hours, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis data model.
After peaking, LTC reversed lower and found new support at $85.37. The steepest drop was accompanied by the session’s highest trading volume of over 180,000 tokens, signaling strong bearish sentiment.
Short-term trading saw additional volatility. In the last few hours of trading, LTC spiked from $85.65 to $86.05, a 0.47% jump, on a burst of buying. But momentum quickly reversed, sending prices back down to $85.53 on another volume spike.
This cemented resistance near $86.05 and reinforced the new support level at $85.37, leaving Litecoin at $85.42 as the session ended. Traders are watching these levels closely for clues on whether the asset will stage a recovery or slip lower in the days ahead.
The crypto industry’s political-finance arm, the towering campaign-funding entity known as Fairshake, dropped another $1 million into the coffers of a special-election candidate hoping to replace a Virginia Democrat who died in office, Representative Gerald Connolly.
The candidate favored by the industry’s chief political action committee, James Walkinshaw, won the Democrats’ so-called firehouse primary over the weekend, in which the party conducted its own polling to determine its chosen candidate among a field of nine. The general election to formally select the Fairfax County region’s next member of Congress is set for Sept. 9, though the Democrat incumbent took about two thirds of the vote in the regular election last year, giving Walkinshaw a heavy advantage.
«We look forward to James joining the growing, bipartisan coalition in Congress that understands the importance of securing America’s leadership in the next generation of technology,» said Josh Vlasto, a Fairshake spokesman, in a statement. He argued that the race again demonstrated that the electorate isn’t moved by critics who attempt to tarnish candidates who show support for the sector and are backed by its campaign resources, as at least one of Walkinshaw’s opponents sought to do.
Fairshake (and its affiliate super PACs, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress) rose into prominence in the 2024 congressional elections as it amassed a huge war chest from major digital assets businesses, including Coinbase, Ripple and a16z. It devoted its campaign spending in outsized chunks that in some cases dwarfed what was spent by the opponents of the group’s chosen candidates. As a result, Fairshake added a long list of winners to the ranks of Congress’ crypto supporters in those elections, but it has continued its strategy in special elections as one-off contests seek to fill vacated seats such as Connolly’s.
In the case of Walkinshaw, Connolly’s former chief of staff, the spending came from Protect Progress, which focuses on Democrat candidates. While his former boss had voted routinely against crypto issues, Walkinshaw’s campaign site says the candidate favors an «embrace of the next generation of technology,» including blockchain, which the campaign said «can reduce administrative costs for businesses and lower fees for consumers.»
«Congress should establish modern, risk-based regulatory frameworks that support responsible innovation and prevent abuse,» according to Walkinshaw’s website.
The super PAC still has about $116 million on hand as the 2026 congressional election cycle approaches next year, Vlasto said. Current members of Congress it supported in the past round are already at work on major crypto bills that have been advancing this year.
Fairshake makes massive «independent expenditures» in political races, meaning their outside money buys advertising without approval or communication from the candidate. Though it represents crypto interests, the advertising purchased by the group almost never mentions the topic of digital assets, instead focusing on whatever political points are most likely to garner a win.
Read More: Crypto’s Fairshake Notches Latest Wins in Florida Congressional Races
Ripple officially introduced the XRP Ledger’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain to the mainnet in an bid to improve the ecosystem’s interoperability and allow developers to deploy their Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dapps) with the XRPL.
The development adds EVM-compatible smart contracts while maintaining a connection to the XRPL, giving developers access to the ecosystem at a low cost, Ripple said in a blog post. It is designed to eliminate the trade-off between EVM compatibility and XRPL’s own advantages, opening the door for dapps to lean into XRP’s payments infrastructure.
“The XRPL EVM Sidechain introduces a flexible environment for developers to deploy EVM-based applications, while maintaining a connection to the XRPL’s efficiency,” David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief technology officer and a co-creater of XRPL, said in the post. “It extends the capabilities of the ecosystem without changing the fundamentals that make the XRPL reliable.”
The sidechain operates as a separate blockchain that is parallel and connected to the XRP Ledger over the Axelar bridge, an interoperability protocol. XRPL’s native token, XRP (XRP), will serve as the native gas token for the sidechain.
The chain is designed specifically for developers, as they can now build and deploy their EVM-based applications, while accessing XRPL’s network of over 6 million wallet holders, Ripple said. The sidechain is planned to eventually also integrate with Wormhole, another interoperability protocol, allowing even more developers to access the XRP ecosystem.
Read more: Ripple Integrates Wormhole With XRP Ledger to Power Institutional Multichain Moves
Litecoin Slips Below $86 as Resistance Holds; Traders Watch Bitcoin Dominance
Industry’s PAC Keeps Seeking to Add Allies as Congress Hashes Out Crypto Legislation
XRPL EVM Sidechain Goes Live, Unlocking Ethereum Dapps in XRP Ecosystem
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