Crypto Daybook Americas: BTC 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:

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's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

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 Runes minted daily (IntoTheBlock)

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

In the Ether