Bitcoin buoyant as Maduro's fall ignites shadow reserve rumor: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Happy New Year, readers! Crypto's kicking off 2026 with good vibes: Bitcoin BTC $ 92,888.27 is buoyant near $92,700, up 1.3% in 24 hours and 5% in the first five days of the year.

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Major altcoins like XRP, SOL, BNB, and ETH have risen 1%-3% over the past 24 hours, with XRP up 2.49%, SOL up 1.27%, BNB up 0.54%, and ETH up 0.99%. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) rose 1.25%, reflecting strength in the biggest, most active assets, while the CoinDesk 80 Index (CD80) shed early gains, signaling relative weakness in the broader altcoin market.

Analysts cited safe-haven demand following the U.S. action in Venezuela and exhaustion in tax-related selling as key catalysts for bitcoin's price rise.

Data from Deribit shows renewed trader demand for bullish option bets, predominantly the $100,000 strike call.

"We noticed ETF inflows on January 2nd after consecutive outflows during December and 3000x lots of Jan-end BTC calls going through on the last day of December," Laser Digital told CoinDesk in an email.

Over the weekend, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro. Since then, crypto social media has lit up with speculation that Venezuela may be controlling a substantial shadow BTC reserve, possible as large as that of bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR), which holds BTC worth over $62 billion. These claims remain unverified.

If true, however, the U.S. might seize those coins and add them to its strategic BTC reserve.

"The prospect of the U.S. adding any seized BTC to its own strategic reserve reduces the likelihood of forced selling and underscores BTC's rising strategic importance as nations compete to accumulate," QCP Capital said in a market note Monday.

The other trending narrative is that President Donald Trump could soon tap into Venezuela's 300 billion barrels of oil reserves, boosting supply. This, in turn, could crash oil prices, allowing the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates more rapidly.

However, having reserves and producing them in the first place are two different things. Several analysts said Venezuelan crude from the Orinoco Belt is heavy, impure sour crude, making it difficult and expensive to extract and refine, which requires huge investments.

This means the reserves may not start flowing in the near future, limiting their impact on oil prices. In other words, the disinflationary impulse anticipated by BTC bulls may not materialize anytime soon.

In other key news, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the network has effectively solved the blockchain scalability trilemma, balancing decentralization, security and high transaction speed, with the help of key upgrades like zkEVMs and PeerDAS.

In traditional markets, the dollar index rose for the fourth straight trading day, rising above 98.50. Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 traded higher. In the macroeconomy, we have a flurry of key U.S. data releases this week, starting with the ISM Manufacturing PMI later today, followed by the non-manufacturing PMI, the ADP Employment report, and nonfarm payrolls data in the days ahead. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

Crypto Nothing scheduled.

Macro Jan. 5, 10 a.m.: U.S. Dec. ISM Manufacturing PMI Est. 48.3.

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) Nothing scheduled.

(Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

Governance votes & calls BIM Protocol is voting on integrating a bridge to Bitcoin and Monero via Quickex to expand cross-chain interoperability. Voting ends Jan. 5.

Unlocks Jan. 5: HYPE $ 26.32

Token Launches Jan. 5: Lighter (LIT) to be listed on BTSE. Jan. 5: Renzo to conduct its third monthly REZ token burn of tokens acquired using protocol revenue.



Conferences

Nothing scheduled.

Market Movements

BTC is up 3.26% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $92,963.75 (24hrs: +1.87%)

ETH is up 1.28% at $3,168.94 (24hrs: +0.99%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 3.67% at 2,947.34 (24hrs: +1.27%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 3.05%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0041% (4.4435% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.18% at 98.61

Gold futures are up 3.06% at $4,446.50/oz

Silver futures are up 7.53% at $75.87/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +2.97% at 51,832.80

Hang Seng closed unchanged at 26,347.24

FTSE is up 0.32% at 9,983.44

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.79% at 5,900.01

DJIA closed on Friday +0.66% at 48,382.39

S&P 500 closed up 0.19% at 6,858.47

Nasdaq Composite closed unchanged at 23,235.63

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.37% at 31,883.40

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.76% at 3,157.25

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.17%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.21% at 6,914.75

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.49% at 25,510.50

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 48,643.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.37% (+0.35%)

Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03418 (-0.52%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,053 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $39.46

Total fees: 2.4 BTC / $218,657

CME Futures Open Interest: 104,905 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 20.8 oz.

BTC vs gold market cap: 6.21%

Technical Analysis

BTC ended 2025 with a red candle. (TradingView)

The chart shows BTC's yearly price swings in candlestick format.

Ether closed 2025 lower, forming a candle with a long upper wick signaling bulls' failure to hold gains above $100K, mirroring 2024's pattern.

These back-to-back bull failures reveal weakening demand, with sellers regaining control to drive a deeper price drop.

Crypto Equities

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Friday at $236.53 (+4.59%), +4.15% at $246.35 in pre-market

Circle (CRCL): closed at $83.47 (+5.26%), +2.46% at $85.52

Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $24.75 (+10.69%), +2.71% at $25.42

Bullish (BLSH): closed at $39.26 (+3.67%), +1.88% at $40

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $9.91 (+10.36%), +3.43%at $10.25

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.16 (+11.76%), +2.82% at $14.56

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.99 (+9.82%), +1.13% at $16.17

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.55 (+14.13%), +3.9% at $12

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $42.05 (+9.88%), +2.93% at $43.28

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $15.20 (+2.77%), unchanged in pre-market

Crypto Treasury Companies

Strategy (MSTR): closed at $157.16 (+3.43%), +3.94% at $163.35

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $17.78 (+16.29%), +4.89% at $18.65

SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $9.69 (+8.39%), +2.68% at $9.95

Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.91 (+13.69%), +5.24% at $2.01

Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.54 (+16.67%), +6.49% at $1.64

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flows: $471.3 million

Cumulative net flows: $57.07 billion

Total BTC holdings ~1.3 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flows: $174.5 million

Cumulative net flows: $12.52 billion

Total ETH holdings ~6.07 million

Source: Farside Investors

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