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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
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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