Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin (BTC), Gold Prices Rally in Tandem on Regulatory Outlook, Muted Tariff Effects

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin remains well supported above $100,000 as it eyes record highs, buoyed by reports that the new SEC leadership has established a task force to develop a framework for crypto assets. Pundits have long said regulatory clarity could pave the way for further price appreciation.

Gold's price rebound from December lows has also gathered pace and is now just 1% shy of setting new highs above $2,790 per ounce. That's unusual: Bitcoin typically rallies when the price of gold stagnates.

Perhaps gold is saying the Fed will walk back on its hawkish December bias that signaled fewer rate cuts, helping keep BTC bid. And why not? Reports indicate that Trump's tariffs will be lighter than anticipated and research from MacroMicro shows that their inflationary impact during his previous presidency was minimal.

In the broader crypto market, on-chain data from IntoTheBlock reveals that 80% of addresses holding LINK, one of the recent top performers, are in profit at the going market rate of $25.70. Key resistance levels have been identified at $27 and $29, which acted as barriers last year.

The movement of XRP, another recent outperformer, between addresses owned by whales and centralized exchanges has slowed considerably from the record levels earlier this month. That may be a sign these large holders have slowed their profit-taking activity.

Meanwhile, traders are expressing enthusiasm with sentiments like "we are so back," especially after Bloomberg's James Seyffart shared filings for ETF applications involving coins including LTC, SOL, DOGE, XRP and others. It seems the momentum in both the crypto and traditional markets could be setting the stage for an exciting period ahead. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Token Events

Governance votes & calls CoW DAO is discussing the potential allocation of 80 million COW to empower the core treasury team for further liquidity provisioning, economic opportunities, and the development of the DAO’s product roadmap from 2025 to 2028. Morpho DAO is discussing reducing incentives by 30% across all networks and assets. Yearn DAO is discussing funding and endorsing a subDAO called Bearn to focus on building and launching products on Berachain. Jan. 22: Mantle (MNT) will host a livestream with updates on its 2025 roadmap at 8 a.m. Jan. 23: Pendle (PENDLE) is hosting Pendle Swing Hour at 7 a.m.

Unlocks Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.

Token Launches Jan. 22: Jambo (J) is listing on OKX, Gate.io, Bitfinex and Bybit. Jan. 22: Liquity (LQTY) and Gravity (G) are being listed on Kraken. Jan. 22: Telegram Gifts are launching as NFTs on TON.



Conferences:

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Uniswap to begin v4 deployments this week for builders to test hooks and integrations on-chain. The new architecture of v4, including the singleton contract and flash accounting system, is designed to reduce transaction costs and improve efficiency, which could attract more developers and users to the platform, increasing the overall usage of Uniswap, and, in turn, demand for UNI tokens.

AI16Z and AI Rig Complex's ARC rallied over 30% on Tuesday while GRIFFAIN, ZEREBRO also booked double-digit advances. President Trump unveiled a $500 billion investment in private sector AI infrastructure investment with firms such as OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank involved.

Derivatives Positioning

TRX, SHIB, PEPE and DOGE lead perpetual futures open interest growth in large-cap tokens. However, TRX is the only one with a positive cumulative volume delta, representing net buying pressure in the past 24 hours.

Front-end call bias in BTC and ETH options on Deribit continues to moderate while on the CME, call skew jumped to highest since the U.S. election Tuesday.

Block flows featured long positions in BTC calls at $110K and $115K strikes and bull call spreads in ETH.

Market Movements:

BTC is down 0.9% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $105,161.32 (24hrs: +1.32%)

ETH is unchanged at $3,312.58 (24hrs: +0.28%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.6% at 4,000.99 (24hrs: +2.27%)

Ether staking yield is down 28 bps at 3.3%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0045% (4.9% annualized) on OKX

DXY is down 0.23% at 107.81

Gold is up 0.56% at $2,759.03/oz

Silver is up 0.33% at $30.88/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +1.58% to 39,646.25

Hang Seng closed -1.63% to 19,778.77

FTSE is up 0.41% at 8,583.19

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.83% at 5,209.04

DJIA closed on Tuesday +1.24% to 44,025.81

S&P 500 closed +0.88% to 6,049.24

Nasdaq closed +0.64% to 19,756.78

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.44% to 25,281.63

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.51% to 2,269.78

U.S. 10-year Treasury is unchanged at 4.58%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.49% at 6,114.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.88% at 21,900.00

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.19% at 44,320.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 58.67

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.031

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 769 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $60.7

Total Fees: 10.2 BTC / $1.1 million

CME Futures Open Interest: 502,406

BTC priced in gold: 38.1 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 10.83%

Technical Analysis

Dollar Index. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

The dollar index (DXY) looks south, having dived out of a bullish trendline from late September lows near 100.

The decline in DXY could add to the bullish momentum in risky assets.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $389.10 (-1.87%), down 0.63% at $386.58 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $294.19 (-0.44%), down 1% at $291.26 in pre-market.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$31.25 (+0.32%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.56 (-1.76%), down 1.07% at $19.35 in pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.74 (-4.85%), down 0.24% at $12.71 in pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.27 (+1.8%), down 0.79% at $15.15 n pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.96 (-7.67%), up 0.36% at $11 in pre-market.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $24.97 (-1.58%).

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $64.94 (+0.4%), down 4.22% at $62.20 in pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $40 (+3.87%), down 2.35% at $39.06 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $802.6 million

Cumulative net flows: $39.98 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.155 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: $74.4 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.74 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.622 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

XRP's exchange reserve. (CryptoQuant)

The chart shows XRP's exchange reserve or balance held in wallets tied to centralized exchanges since June 2024.

The balance has dropped sharply since Jan. 16, signaling a resumption of the broader downtrend.

The renewed exodus of coins from exchanges indicates investor bias for holding.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether