BTC US$103K. SOL & BTC ATH. Trump memecoin shakes markets.
In Markets
Bitcoin saw wild swings of 10% this week as excitement waxed and waned over President Trump’s impact. The price hit a new all-time high above US$109k yesterday as speculation grew over a potential Bitcoin stockpile or reserve, but has eased back today. The Bitcoin price is up 8% on the same time last week to trade at around US$103,755. Bearish sentiment around Ethereum reached fever point in the wake of the TRUMP memecoin launching on Solana, but it still finished the week up 4% to trade around US$3,334. Some crypto media reported that XRP hit a new all-time high this week. It finishes the week up 20%. Solana broke through to a new all time high and is up 34% for the week. Whether it can sustain that in the face of 13 million SOL being unlocked in February and March remains to be seen. Dogecoin was up 5%, alongside Cardano (6%), Chainlink (37.4%) and Shiba Inu (1.3%). The Bitcoin ETFs hauled in almost a billion dollars on Friday, bringing the total for the week to US$1.86B. The Ethereum ETFs saw US$212M. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 76 or Extreme Greed.
From the IR OTC Desk
Market sentiment and price movement:
We recovered from last week's lows to trade higher, buoyed at the start of the week by lower PPI and CPI inflation numbers from the U.S. Bond futures are currently pricing in approximately a 50% chance of two or more rate cuts for 2025, up from 25% last week. The market was very choppy ahead of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration on January 20th. BTC/USD peaked at $106,084 before dropping to $99,650 within a couple of hours. It then rallied sharply to an all-time high of $108,999 on Independent Reserve, fueled by rumours of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve announcement during the Inauguration Speech. However, no such mention was made, leading to an overnight sell-off, bringing BTC/USD back down to nearly $100,000. Markets will be watching the FOMC rate decision next week, with rates expected to remain unchanged. The direction will largely depend on the tone of the first press conference post-inauguration, where a dovish statement could lead to bullish sentiment.
Cryptocurrency developments:
OTC desk activity:?
There was significant interest in profit-taking when BTC/USD was above $100,000, alongside selling alt-coins and stablecoins. This was surprising, as Tether (USDT) is trading at a 15 basis point discount.
Key economic calendar events (SGT):
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In Headlines
Crypto executive orders
Donald Trump was sworn in as President earlier today but did not mention Bitcoin in his inauguration speech, and a list of priorities for the new administration sent to Republican legislators also didn't list crypto reforms. But by the time you read this, he may already have signed an executive order on the topic, with 100 expected in the first week. Bloomberg reports he'll direct the SEC to rescind the SAB 121 guidance that prevents banks from custodying crypto. He's also set to issue an order to create a crypto council to advise the government and order an end to Operation Choke Point 2.0, the systematic debanking of crypto companies. The New York Post reported “sources” claiming a strategic reserve would prioritise US-founded coins like Solana and XRP, but other sources told Unchained that was likely false.?
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New acting CFTC chair
Republican commissioner Caroline Pham has been appointed acting chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Pham is said to be very supportive of crypto, with the CFTC expected to play a more significant role in crypto regulation than the SEC in future.?
Crypto ball
Crypto's most important people gathered in Washington for the Crypto Ball on Friday night, headlined by Snoop Dogg and attended by Michael Saylor, Brian Armstrong, the Winklevoss brothers, Jesse Powell and the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. New crypto czar David Sacks told jubilant attendees: “The reign of terror against crypto is over, and the beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun.”
Trump memecoin insanity
During the ball, Trump dropped his own memecoin on Solana, and everybody in crypto sold other memes to get a hold of it. Within a day or so, TRUMP hit a fully diluted value of around US$73B, but with 80% of the supply owned by Trump’s companies and locked for three years, the real market cap peaked around US$14.7B, and it’s now US$7.96B. The crypto community is divided about the coin, and government watchdogs aren’t impressed either. “It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office,” said Adav Noti from the Campaign Legal Center. "It is beyond unprecedented.” But Jeff Dorman, CIO of Arca, said the success of Trump "just signalled to every company, municipality, university & individual brand that crypto can now be used as a capital formation and customer bootstrapping mechanism. NYC will have a token. Harvard will have a token. Netflix will have a token." Melania Trump then launched a token on Monday morning, which surged to a market cap of US$1.95B within two hours, tanking the price of TRUMP.
TRUMP the end for Ethereum?
While the TRUMP launch on Solana was seen as super bearish for Ethereum, the very next day the Trump-backed ETH DeFI project World Liberty Financial snapped up US$48 million in ETH and today it bought another US$47 million ETH along with US$47 million in wrapped Bitcoin, and about US$5M each of AAVE, TRX, ENA and LINK. The Trump family are just ambassadors for the project which is actually run by co-founders Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman (Dough Finance) Steven Witkoff and sons Alex and Zach, and some tech guys.
Pectra upgrade for March
Ethereum has scheduled the Pectra upgrade for March provided no issues are found on testnet. The fork enables existing Ethereum accounts to upgrade to smart accounts (account abstraction) with a single click. This enables automated payments for bills or subscriptions, and for app operators to pay your gas fees. The maximum validator stake limit will jump from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, and blobs are doubling from 3 per block to 6 to help the L2s scale up. Meanwhile in response to criticism of the Ethereum Foundation, creator Vitalik Buterin has promised "large changes" to the leadership. There's a big push to replace executive director Aya Miyaguchi — who told Wired she doesn't approve of a "culture of winning" — with former researcher Danny Ryan who led the proof of stake upgrade. The Foundation also transferred 50,000 to Aave to participate in DeFi, likely in response to criticism over its ETH sales.?
VC money pours into crypto
Venture capital firms poured US$3.5B into crypto startups in the final quarter of 2024, a 46% increase on the previous quarter and the best result since the fourth quarter of 2022 when FTX imploded. The money was spread over 416 deals and the US was the number one destination for venture capital invested.
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