Bitcoin risks losing key support zone as risk assets struggle

Risk assets are falling as the U.S. dollar index and Treasury yields benefit from Friday's blowout nonfarm payrolls report and the risks posed by the Palisades fires to the insurance industry and some property and casualty companies.

BTC fell 2%, changing hands at the key support areas of $90,000 and $93,000, while other cryptocurrencies posted bigger losses as usual. ETH has fallen to its lowest levels since December 21, with risk aversion clouding XRP’s bullish technical outlook (see TA section). Over the weekend, whales may have accumulated XRP on South Korea’s Upbit. AI coins were the worst performing sub-sector over the past 24 hours. In traditional markets, futures linked to the S&P 500 opened negative while sterling and emerging market currencies continued to move lower.

However, risk aversion has not stopped Michael Saylor from expressing the possibility of buying Bitcoin again as he shared the latest information from MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Purchase Tracker. If that dampens negative market sentiment, that's a different story. BRN analyst Valentin Fournier said: “The company's acquisition last Monday, worth approximately $100 million, had a limited impact on the market, but highlighted the company's continued demand.”

All else being equal, the risk of Bitcoin losing its support area appears high, as some investment banks believe the Fed’s rate cut cycle is over and the Bank of America has hinted at the possibility of a rate hike. Some observers believe the price will drop to $70,000 before rising again.

Meanwhile, the 30-day moving average of the Coinbase-Binance BTC spread, which has the ability to mark major price tops, has fallen to its lowest level since at least 2019, a sign of weakening demand in the United States.

In the short term, the cryptocurrency market is likely to focus on President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 and the ongoing FTX claim distribution, according to Coinbase Agency.

January 13: Solayer (LAYER) “First Quarter” airdrop snapshot for staking participants, liquidity providers, and partner ecosystem users.

January 15: Derive (DRV) creates and distributes new tokens in a token generation event.

January 15: Mintlayer version 1.0.0 released. The mainnet upgrade introduces atomic swaps and supports native BTC cross-chain swaps.

January 16, 3:00 AM: Trading of Sonic Token (S) will begin on Binance, with trading pairs including S/USDT, S/BTC, and S/BNB.

January 17: Solv Protocol’s native token SOLV was listed for the first time.

Macro

January 13, 2:00 pm: The U.S. Treasury Department releases the December 2024 Treasury Monthly Statement. Monthly budget deficit projections. $62B compared to the previous $367B.

January 14, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases December 2024 PPI data.

The month-on-month PPI is expected to fall by 0.3% and 0.4% compared with the previous month.

The core PPI is expected to decrease by 0.3% and 0.2% compared with the previous month.

Core PPI is expected to increase by 3.7% to 3.4% compared with the previous year.

PPI is expected to increase by 3.4% year-on-year compared with the previous year.

January 14, 8:55 a.m.: U.S. Red Book year-over-year data for the week ended January 11. 6.8%.

January 15, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the Consumer Price Index Summary for December 2024.

The core inflation rate is expected to fall by 0.2% to 0.3% from the previous month.

The core inflation rate is expected to increase by 3.3% year-on-year compared with the previous year.

The inflation rate is expected to decrease by 0.3% month-on-month compared with the previous period.

The year-on-year inflation rate is expected to increase by 2.8% to 2.7% compared with the previous year.

January 16, 2:00 a.m.: Office for National Statistics GDP estimates for November 2024.

GDP is expected to fall by 0.2% -0.1% month-on-month compared with the previous month.

GDP was 1.3% year-on-year.

January 16, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases its weekly unemployment insurance claims report for the week ended January 11. 214K compared to 201K in the previous version.

January 17, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases Eurozone inflation data for December 2024.

Inflation is ultimately estimated to have increased by 0.4% -0.3% month-on-month compared with the same period last year.

The core inflation rate is finally estimated to have increased by 2.7% year-on-year compared with the previous estimate.

The final estimate of year-on-year inflation is 2.4% or 2.2% higher than the previous estimate.

Governance votes and calls

The Aave community proposed to adjust the borrowing rate for its GHO stablecoin from 10.50% to 9.00%.

The Aavegotchi DAO actively voted to modify the ETH sell ladder parameters due to ETH’s “significant underperformance.”

January 14: Mantra co-founder holds community conference call

Unlock

There are no major unlocks scheduled for today.

January 14: Arbitrum (ARB) unlocked 0.93% of its circulating supply, worth $70.65 million.

January 15: Connex (CONX) unlocks 376% of its circulating supply, worth $84.5 million.

January 18: Ondo (ONDO) unlocks 134% of its circulating supply, worth $2.19 billion.

Token issuance

There are no major coin releases planned today.

January 15th: Derive (DRV) will launch with 5% of the supply going to sENA stakers. January 16: Solayer (LAYER) hosts a token sale, followed by five months of points farming.

January 17: Solv Protocol (SOLV) will be listed on Binance.

Day 8 of 14: Ethereum layer 2 Starknet is hosting a Winter Hackathon (online).

Day 1 of 12: WEB3FEST Switzerland 2025 Winter Edition (Zug, Zurich, St. Moritz, Davos)

January 17: Unchained: Blockchain Business Forum 2025 (Los Angeles)

January 18: BitcoinDay (Naples, Florida)

January 20-24: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos-Klosters, Switzerland)

January 21: Frankfurt Tokenization Conference 2025

January 25-26: Kastanbul 2025 (Istanbul). Jupiter's first community meeting is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator built on Solana.

January 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)

February 3: Digital Asset Forum (London)

February 18-20: Hong Kong Consensus

Oliver Knight

AI proxy tokens have suffered deep adjustments, with ai16z currently trading at $1.02, down more than 60% from the historical high hit on January 2. The virtual protocol’s native token (VIRTUAL) has fallen a further 16% in the past 24 hours. After surging to $5.04 on January 2, it is currently trading at $2.40, exacerbating the recent downward trend.

NFT project Azuki announced the launch of Japanese cartoon-themed token ANIME, which will allocate 50.5% of the token supply to the Azuki community. Azuki employees and consultants will receive 15.62% of the supply under a vesting plan.

Ethena's ENA token has fallen 11.4% in the past 24 hours as the ETH funding rate on which Ethena's business model relies begins to fall into neutral territory. Ethena’s stablecoin still yields 11%, but if funding rates continue to fall, it’s unclear how long that yield can be maintained.

On-chain data reported by Lookonchain shows that Ethereum whales have begun selling ETH at a loss, with one trader selling 10,070 ETH for $33 million, a loss of $1 million, but still holding $45 million in his wallet.

Perpetual funding rates for TRX, AVAX, SUI, and TON have turned negative, indicating a bearish shift in positioning.

The front-end risk reversal shows strong preference for protective puts on BTC and ETH, consistent with the market’s risk-off sentiment. Screen traders bought BTC put options at $92,000, $90,000, and $87,000.

There is significant negative dealer gamma in the $90,000 to $93,000 range, which means these entities may be trading in the direction of the market to hedge their books, supporting this move. A similar dynamic exists between $3,200 and $3,450. on the ETH market.

BTC and ETH DVOL, a measure of expected 30-day price movement, remained within familiar ranges for the month.

BTC is down 3.12% to $91,392.04 since 4pm ET on Friday (24 hours: -2.67%)

ETH fell 4.78% to $3,109.45 (24 hours: -4.05%)

CoinDesk 20 down 2.15% to 3,310.23 (24 hours: -3.08%)

Ethereum staking yield fell 16 basis points to 2.97%

The BTC financing interest rate on Binance is -0.0149% (annualized -16.27%)

DXY rose 0.35% to 110.04

Gold fell 0.13% to $2,705.00 an ounce

Silver fell 0.84% to $30.83 per ounce

The Nikkei 225 closed -1.05% at 39,190.40

The Hang Seng Index closed -1% at 18,874.14

The FTSE fell 0.25% to 82,27.71

Europe's Stoxx 50 rose 0.92% to 4,931.47

The Dow closed -1.63% on Friday at 41,938.45

The S&P 500 closed -1.54% at 5,827.04

Nasdaq closed -1.63% at 19,161.63

The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.22% at 24,767.70

The S&P 40 Latin America Index closed -1.31% at 2,181.96

U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds rose 2 basis points to 4.79%

E-mini S&P 500 futures fell 0.78% to 5,820.50

E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.18% to 20,767.25

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.48% to 42,022.00

Bitcoin dominance: 58.39

Ethereum to Bitcoin ratio: 0.033

Computing power (seven-day moving average): 775 EH/s

Hash price (spot): $54.6

Total fee: 4.89 BTC/$462,582

CME Futures Open Interest: 175,380 BTC

BTC in gold: 34.5 ounces

Bitcoin and gold market capitalization: 9.82%

XRP broke out of a descending triangle pattern on Friday, signaling a resumption of the broader uptrend from early November lows.

However, BTC macro-led risk-off moves have pushed XRP back to the breakout point.

Watch for a possible move back inside the triangle, as a failed breakout is a powerful bearish reversal signal.

MicroStrategy (MSTR): Closed Friday at $327.91 (-1.14%), after falling 4.95% to $311.67 pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): Closed at $258.78 (-0.47%), down 4.42% to $247.34 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% to $17.04 pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $12.00 (-0.17%), down 5.25% to $11.37 pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): ended unchanged at $14.04, after falling 3.49% to $13.55 pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): ended unchanged at $10.09, down 5.05% pre-market at $9.58

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miner ETF (WGMI): Closed at $23.11 (-0.17%), after falling 4.41% to $22.09 premarket.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): Closed at $51.36 (+2.33%), after falling 7.03% to $47.75 pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): ended unchanged at $37.77, after falling 9.98% to $34.00 pre-market.

Spot BTC ETF:

Net daily traffic: -$149.4 million

Cumulative net flow: $36.22 billion

The total holdings of BTC are approximately 1.137 million.

Spot ETH ETF

Daily net traffic: -$68.5 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.45 billion

The total amount of ETH held is approximately 3.582 million.

Source: Farside Investors, as of January 10.

The number of Bitcoin runes minted daily has fallen to an all-time low, averaging less than 10% of last year’s levels.

Rune gained popularity among traders after the Bitcoin blockchain reward halving last April.

Runes are similar to Ordinals, allowing people to “etch” and mint tokens on-chain.

Goldman Sachs lowers expectations for Fed rate cut, U.S. Bank sees rate hike possible after blowout jobs report, Bitcoin under pressure (CoinDesk): Bitcoin fell below $93,000 during European trading on Monday as strong U.S. employment data spurred investment banks to revise their expectations for a Fed rate cut A warning about potential interest rate hikes.

Singapore follows Taiwan and France in blocking Polymarket (CoinDesk): Over the weekend, Singapore blocked Polymarket, labeling it an unlicensed gambling site. Taiwan and France have taken similar actions as global scrutiny of the platform intensifies.

AI proxy tokens experience sharp market corrections (The Block): AI proxy tokens have plummeted over the past week, with AI16Z falling from $2.26 to $1.10 and GOAT falling from $0.5 to $0.33, while Bitcoin holds steady at $95,000 about.

Global bond panic is a painful and worrisome start to the new year (Bloomberg): U.S. Treasury yields are approaching 5%, driven by strong economic growth, persistent inflation and rising government debt, raising global borrowing costs and reducing interest in Demand for riskier investments such as stocks.

Dollar hits two-year high as strong U.S. data undercut bets on rate cut (Financial Times): The U.S. dollar index hit a two-year high on Monday following a strong U.S. jobs report on Friday. Affected by the new sanctions on Russia, oil prices rose, with Brent crude oil prices rising to $81 and WTI prices rising to $77.90.

ECB seeks middle ground with rate cut, Ryan tells Reuters: The European Central Bank (ECB) plans cautious monetary easing in an effort to tame inflation without triggering a recession as wage growth slows and inflation slows to 2025 Close to the 2% target in the medium term.