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Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Risks Losing Key Support Zone as Risk Assets Struggle
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Risk assets are trading down as the dollar index and Treasury yields benefit from Friday’s blowout nonfarm payrolls report and the Palisades Fires posing a risk to the insurance sector and some P&C companies.
BTC is down 2%, changing hands in the key support zone of $90,000 and $93,000, with alternative cryptocurrencies posting bigger losses as usual. ETH has dropped to the lowest since Dec. 21 and the risk-off has clouded XRP’s bullish technical outlook (see TA section). Whales likely accumulated XRP over South Korea-based Upbit over the weekend. AI coins is the worst performing sub-sector of the past 24 hours. In traditional markets, futures tied to the S&P 500 point to negative open alongside continued downside volatility in the British pound and emerging market currencies.
The risk-off sentiment, however, didn’t stop Michael Saylor from indicating a potential for another bitcoin purchase as he shared an update on MicroStrategy’s bitcoin purchase tracker. If it would put a dent into the negative market sentiment, is another story. «The firm’s purchase last Monday amounted to approximately $100 million, which had limited market impact, but underscores the firm’s ongoing demand,» Valentin Fournier, analyst at BRN said.
Other things being equal, the risk of BTC losing the support zone appears high as some investment banks believe the Fed rate-cutting cycle is over, with Bank of America suggesting a potential for a rate hike. Per some observers, the consensus is that prices will deflate to $70K, followed by a renewed rally.
Meanwhile, the 30-day moving average of the Coinbase-Binance BTC price differential, which has a knack of marking major price tops, has slipped to the lowest since at least 2019, a sign of weaker stateside demand.
Over the near term, the crypto market is likely to focus on President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 and the ongoing FTX claim distributions, according to Coinbase Institutional.
What to Watch
Crypto
Jan. 13: Solayer (LAYER) «Season 1» airdrop snapshot for staking participants, liquidity providers, and partner ecosystem users.
Jan. 15: Derive (DRV) to create and distribute new tokens in token generation event.
Jan. 15: Mintlayer version 1.0.0 release. The mainnet upgrade introduces atomic swaps, enabling native BTC cross-chain swaps.
Jan. 16, 3:00 a.m.: Trading for the Sonic token (S) is set to start on Binance, featuring pairs like S/USDT, S/BTC, and S/BNB.
Jan. 17: Primary listing of SOLV, the native token of Solv Protocol.
Macro
Jan. 13, 2:00 p.m.: The U.S. Department of the Treasury releases December 2024’s Monthly Treasury Statement report. Monthly budget deficit Est. $62B vs. Prev. $367B.
Jan. 14, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases December 2024’s PPI data.
PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%.
Core PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.2%.
Core PPI YoY Est. 3.7% vs. Prev. 3.4%.
PPI YoY Est. 3.4% vs. Prev. 3%.
Jan. 14, 8:55 a.m.: U.S. Redbook YoY for the week ending on Jan. 11. Prev. 6.8%.
Jan. 15, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases December 2024’s Consumer Price Index Summary.
Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.3%.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.3% vs. Prev. 3.3%.
Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.3%.
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.8% vs. Prev. 2.7%.
Jan. 16, 2:00 a.m.: The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics November 2024’s GDP estimate.
GDP MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. -0.1%.
GDP YoY Prev. 1.3%.
Jan. 16, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for the week ending on Jan. 11. Initial Jobless Claims Est. 214K vs. Prev. 201K.
Jan. 17, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases December 2024’s Eurozone inflation data.
Inflation Rate MoM Final Est. 0.4% vs Prev. -0.3%.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Final Est. 2.7% vs. Prev. 2.7%.
Inflation Rate YoY Final Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 2.2%.
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Aave community propose adjusting borrow rate for its GHO stablecoin from 10.50% to 9.00%.
Aavegotchi DAO has an active vote on modifying ETH sell ladder parameters due to «significant underperformance» by ETH.
Jan. 14: Mantra community call with its co-founder
Unlocks
No major unlocks scheduled today.
Jan. 14: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 0.93% of its circulating supply, worth $70.65 million.
Jan. 15: Connex (CONX) to unlock 376% of its circulating supply, worth $84.5 million.
Jan. 18: Ondo (ONDO) to unlock 134% of its circulating supply, worth $2.19 billion.
Token Launches
No major token launches scheduled today.
Jan. 15: Derive (DRV) will launch, with 5% of supply going to sENA stakers.
Jan. 16: Solayer (LAYER) to host token sale followed by five months of points farming.
Jan. 17: Solv Protocol (SOLV) to be listed on Binance.
Conferences:
Day 8 of 14: Starknet, an Ethereum layer 2, is holding its Winter Hackathon (online).
Day 1 of 12: Swiss WEB3FEST Winter Edition 2025 (Zug, Zurich, St. Moritz, Davos)
Jan. 17: Unchained: Blockchain Business Forum 2025 (Los Angeles)
Jan. 18: BitcoinDay (Naples, Florida)
Jan. 20-24: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos-Klosters, Switzerland)
Jan. 21: Frankfurt Tokenization Conference 2025
Jan. 25-26: Catstanbul 2025 (Istanbul). The first community conference for Jupiter, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Solana.
Jan 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)
Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)
Feb. 18-20: Consensus Hong Kong
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
AI agent tokens have suffered a deep correction, with ai16z now trading at $1.02, down more than 60% from its record high set on Jan. 2. Virtual Protocol’s native token (VIRTUAL) has slumped a further 16% over the past 24-hours to compound its recent downtrend, it is now trading at $2.40 after surging to $5.04 on Jan. 2.
NFT project Azuki has announced the launch of ANIME, a Japanese cartoon-themed token that will distribute 50.5% of the token’s supply to the Azuki community. Azuki employees and advisors will receive 15.62% of supply bound by a vesting schedule.
Ethena’s ENA token has dropped by 11.4% over the past 24-hours as funding rates for ETH, which Ethena’s business model relies on, is beginning to fall into neutral territory. Ethena still offers a yield of 11% on its stablecoin although it’s unclear how long that rate is sustainable if funding rates continue to fall.
Ether whales have begun offloading ETH at a loss with one trader selling 10,070 ETH for $33 million at a $1 million loss, the wallet still holds $45 million, on-chain data reported by Lookonchain shows.
Derivatives Positioning
Perpetual funding rates for TRX, AVAX, SUI and TON have flipped negative, indicating a bearish shift in positioning.
Front-end risk reversals show a strong bias for BTC and ETH protective put options in line with the risk-off sentiment in markets. Screen traders have bought puts at $92K, $90K and $87K in BTC.
There is notable negative dealer gamma in the range of $90K and $93K, which means these entities might trade in the market’s direction to hedge book, bolstering the move. A similar dynamic exists between $3.2K and $3,450. in the ETH market.
BTC and ETH DVOLs, measuring 30-day expected price swings, remain in the familiar ranges for the month.
Market Movements:
BTC is down 3.12% from 4 p.m. ET Friday to $91,392.04 (24hrs: -2.67%)
ETH is down 4.78% at $3,109.45 (24hrs: -4.05%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 2.15% to 3,310.23 (24hrs: -3.08%)
Ether staking yield is down 16 bps to 2.97%
BTC funding rate is at -0.0149% (-16.27% annualized) on Binance
DXY is up 0.35% at 110.04
Gold is down 0.13% at $2,705.00/oz
Silver is down 0.84% to $30.83/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -1.05% at 39,190.40
Hang Seng closed -1% at 18,874.14
FTSE is down 0.25% at 82,27.71
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.92% at 4,931.47
DJIA closed on Friday -1.63% to 41,938.45
S&P 500 closed -1.54% at 5,827.04
Nasdaq closed -1.63% at 19,161.63
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.22% at 24,767.70
S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.31% at 2,181.96
U.S. 10-year Treasury is up 2 bps at 4.79%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.78% to 5,820.50
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.18% to 20,767.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.48% at 42,022.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 58.39
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.033
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 775 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $54.6
Total Fees: 4.89 BTC/ $462,582
CME Futures Open Interest: 175,380 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 34.5 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.82%
Technical Analysis
XRP broke out of a descending triangle pattern Friday, signaling a resumption of the broader uptrend from early November lows.
However, BTC’s macro-led risk-off action has pushed XRP back to the breakout point.
Watch out for a potential move back inside the triangle, as failed breakouts are powerful bearish reversal signals.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $327.91 (-1.14%), down 4.95% at $311.67 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $258.78 (-0.47%), down 4.42% at $247.34 in pre-market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$27.07 (+0.82%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.86 (-2.62%), down 4.59% at $17.04 in pre-market.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.00 (-0.17%), down 5.25% at $11.37 in pre-market.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed unchanged at $14.04, down 3.49% at $13.55 in pre-market.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed unchanged at $10.09, down 5.05% at $9.58 in pre-market
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $23.11 (-0.17%), down 4.41% at $22.09 in pre-market.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $51.36 (+2.33%), down 7.03% at $47.75 in pre-market.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed unchanged at $37.77, down 9.98% at $34.00 in pre-market.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $-149.4 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.22 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.137 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $-68.5 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.45 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.582 million.
Source: Farside Investors, as of Jan. 10.
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The number of Bitcoin Runes minted daily has slipped to a record lows, averaging less than 10% of last year’s figures.
Runes was a big hit among traders following the Bitcoin blockchain’s reward halving in April last year.
Runes is similar to Ordinals, allows people to “etch” and mint tokens on-chain.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin Under Pressure as Goldman Trims Fed Rate Cut Expectations, BofA Sees Potential Hike After Blowout Jobs Report (CoinDesk): Bitcoin fell below $93K during Monday’s European trading hours as strong U.S. jobs data spurred investment banks to revise Fed rate cut expectations, with some warning of potential hikes.
Singapore Blocks Polymarket, Following Taiwan and France (CoinDesk): Over the weekend, Singapore blocked access to Polymarket, labeling it an unlicensed gambling site. This follows similar actions in Taiwan and France, as global scrutiny of the platform grows.
AI Agent Tokens Reel From a Steep Market Correction (The Block): AI agent tokens plunged over the past week, with AI16Z going from $2.26 to $1.10 and GOAT falling from $0.5 to $0.33, while bitcoin held steady around the $95,000 level.
Global Bond Tantrum Is a Wrenching and Worrisome Start to New Year (Bloomberg): U.S. Treasury yields are nearing 5%, driven by strong economic growth, persistent inflation, and rising government debt, raising global borrowing costs and reducing demand for riskier investments like stocks.
Dollar Hits 2-Year High After Robust US Data Pares Back Bets on Rate Cuts (Financial Times): On Monday, the U.S. dollar index hit a two-year high following Friday’s strong U.S. jobs report. Oil prices rose, with Brent reaching $81 and WTI hitting $77.90, on new Russian sanctions.
ECB Seeking Middle Ground With Rate Cuts, Lane Tells Newspaper (Reuters): The European Central Bank (ECB) plans cautious monetary easing, striving to curb inflation without triggering recession, as wage growth moderates and inflation approaches its 2% target by mid-2025.
In the Ether
On Friday, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was allegedly hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus group, which drained nearly $1.4 billion in ether (ETH) from the exchange.
Following the hack, Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and claiming to be a major ether (ETH) holder, wrote a post on X to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on whether he will “advocate to roll back the chain to help @Bybit_Official.” Meanwhile, in an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that his team had also reached out to the Ethereum Foundation to see if it was something the network would consider, noting that such a decision should be based on what the network’s community wants.
Hayes’s post immediately provoked a fierce reaction from the Ethereum community, which was firm in its belief that it wouldn’t happen. Some even questioned whether the BitMEX founder was joking. CoinDesk reached out to Hayes over X to clarify his comments.
Ethereum members, like the core developer teams, are vastly against “rolling back” the network because it would override core elements of decentralization. If Buterin decided on his own that it would happen, then that would be seen as the end of Ethereum’s ethos, which heavily involves various developer teams and other community members when it comes to the health and state of the blockchain.
“Rolling back the chain would give ETH no purpose. What’s the point if you can just change rules,” said user @the_weso in a post on X.
Some outside the Ethereum community pointed to the 2016 DAO hack as an example when $60 million in ETH was stolen. The network went forward with a hard fork, splitting the old network into two, and the new chain continued on as Ethereum.
That hard fork was not a “rollback,” though; it was known as an “irregular state transition.” Ethereum technically can’t “roll back” the network because it relies on an account model, where accounts hold users’ ETH.
At the time of the hack, developers upgraded their nodes to a new client or software. Those who didn’t upgrade their nodes were still on the old chain, which became known as Ethereum Classic.
When the nodes upgraded to the new software, the stolen ETH could move from one Ethereum account address to the next.
“The ‘irregular state change’ that they implemented at the time of the DAO hard fork was this: they airlifted all the ETH in the DAO smart contracts out to a refund contract that would send you 1 ETH for every 100 DAO tokens you sent in,” wrote Laura Shin of Unchained in a post on X.
Major cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has seen total outflows of over $5.5 billion after it suffered a near $1.5 billion hack that saw hackers, believed to be from North Korea’s Lazarus Group, drain its ether cold wallet.
The total assets tracked on wallets associated with the exchange plunged from around $16.9 billion to $11.2 billion at the time of writing, according to data from DeFiLlama. The exchange is now looking to understand exactly what happened.
In an X spaces session, Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou revealed that shortly after the incident, he called for “all hands on deck” to serve their clients with processing withdrawals and responding to inquiries about what was going on.
During the session, Zhou revealed that the security breach saw the hackers make off with roughly 70% of their clients’ ether, which meant that Bybit needed to quickly secure a loan to be able to process withdrawals. Yet, Zhou found that ether wasn’t the most withdrawn token, with most users instead withdrawing stablecoin from Bybit.
The exchange, Zhou noted, has reserves to cover these withdrawals, but the crisis deepened as, in response to the incident, Safe moved to temporarily shut down its smart wallet functionalities to “ensure absolute confidence in our platform’s security.”
Safe is a decentralized custody protocol providing smart contract wallets for digital asset management. Some exchanges integrated Safe, which allows users to maintain custody of their funds and has multisig functionality to enhance the security of their cold wallets.
While the exchange had reserves to back up users’ withdrawals, $3 billion worth of USDT was in a Safe wallet that had just been shut down as the wallet moved to understand the situation, according to Zhou.
On social media, Safe said that while it had «not found evidence that the official Safe frontend was compromised,» it was temporarily shutting down «certain functionalities» out of caution.
While Zhou and Bybit’s team were figuring out how to securely withdraw their $3 billion, withdrawals were mounting. Within two hours of the security breach, the exchange was facing requests to move over $100,000 off its platform, Zhou revealed.
Responding to the situation, Zhou told his security team to engage Safe to “find a better way to get this money out.” The team ended up developing new software with code “based on Etherscan” to verify the signatures “on a very manual level” to move the stablecoins back to their wallet and cover the withdrawal surge.
The exchange’s team had to remain up all night to be able to fulfill withdrawals, according to Zhou. As the exchange managed to move the $3 billion in stablecoin reserves, it was facing a bank run of “about 50%” of all the funds within the exchange.
Zhou said that since the incident, the exchange has moved a significant amount of funds off of Safe cold wallets and is now determining what system it will use to replace Safe.
Pushing to «Roll Back» Ethereum Was not Off the Table
Since the security breach, Bybit has engaged authorities. During the session, Zhou said that the Singaporean authorities took the issue “very seriously” and that he believes it has already been escalated with Interpol.
Blockchain analysis firms, including Chainalysis, were engaged. Zhou said, “As long as Bybit is there and continues to track [the stolen ether], I hope we can get these funds back.”
Notably, he revealed that pushing to «roll back» the Ethereum blockchain, which was suggested by some industry players on social media, including BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, had been on the table for some time if the community agreed with it.
“I had my team talking to Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation to see if there’s any recommendations they can offer to help. I do really thank all these guys on Twitter asking if there is a possibility to roll back the chain. I’m not sure what was the response on their side, but anything that would help we would try,” Zhou said.
When asked if «rolling back» the chain is even possible, Zhou responded he doesn’t know. “I’m not sure it’s a one-man decision based on the spirit of blockchain. It should be a work in process to see what the community wants,” he said.
It’s worth noting that a blockchain «rollback» refers to a state change that would allow for the funds to be recovered. While rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain is technically possible, such a state change on Ethereum would be more complex, given its smart contract interactions and state-based architecture.
Nevertheless, any state change would require consensus and likely lead to a contentious hard fork, drawing criticism from the community. This would likely split the Ethereum blockchain into two networks, each with its own supporters.
As for what exactly caused the hack to occur, is still unclear. Per Zhou, Bybit’s laptops have not been compromised. He said the movements of the transaction’s signers have been scrutinized but appear to have been routine.
“We know the cause is definitely around the Safe cold wallet. Whether it’s a problem with our laptops or on Safe’s side, we don’t know.,” Zhou added.
Uncategorized
Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025
A vast majority of Latin American cryptocurrency users—95%—plan to expand their holdings in 2025, according to a Binance Research survey of more than 10,000 investors in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
The findings show that 40.1% of respondents are expecting to buy more crypto within the next three months, 15.3% are looking to do so in the next six months, and 39.7% within 12 months. Only 4.9% have no plans to keep on investing this year.
Latin America led the world in crypto adoption in 2024, growing by 116%, according to research from payments firm Triple-A quoted in the report. The region now has 55 million cryptocurrency users, making up nearly 10% of total cryptocurrency users.
This rapid expansion has been fueled by rising asset prices, regulatory advancements, and new financial products like spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Brazil has just last week become the first country to approve a spot XRP ETF.
Market performance has also bolstered investor confidence. «Latin America is a rapidly expanding region for the crypto sector, and the results of this research reinforce what we have observed in our operations,” Binance’s regional VP for Latin America, Guilherme Nazar, said.
Binance’s research shows that half of those inquired already use cryptocurrencies for over a year, with most entering the space expecting significant returns and searching for financial freedom.
Portfolio diversification, privacy, and protecting their money were also quoted as motives to invest in the space.
Read more: How a $115M Crypto Fund With Big Ambitions Plans to Invest In Latin America
Ethereum ‘Roll Back’ Suggestion Has Sparked Criticism. Here’s Why It Won’t Happen
Bybit Sees Over $4 Billion ‘Bank Run’ After Crypto’s Biggest Hack
Binance Research Survey Shows 95% of Latin American Crypto Users Plan to Buy More in 2025
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