By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)

The crypto world is buzzing as President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration approaches. Bitcoin holds above $100,000 and altcoins like SOL, ADA, LINK, XRP and LTC shine as it is not just about a potential strategic bitcoin reserve anymore. Reports suggest that Trump could announce crypto as a policy priority.

Things also heat up for ether. A blockchain address associated with Trump’s World Liberty Finance (WLF) project scooped up nearly $10 million in ETH this week, according to Arkham Intelligence. And keep an eye on the layer-1 blockchain Near Protocol’s NEAR. The token’s supply dynamics look bullish, with the stake-to-unstaked NEAR ratio rising, according to data source Flipside.

Overall, the outlook for the crypto market is bullish as Wednesday’s US CPI report eased inflation concerns, allowing traders to focus on Trump’s inauguration. On-chain analysis from 21Shares shows that there is still plenty of upside left for BTC.

That said, consider the possibility of a price drop if a major announcement doesn’t materialize on Trump’s first day.

“The macroeconomic backdrop remains supportive, with unemployment trending downward, inflation showing signs of easing and the market riding a wave of enthusiasm linked to Trump’s inauguration,” said Valentin Fournier, analyst at BRN. “We maintain a positive outlook for Q1, although a correction could occur this week if the new administration does not outline a solid plan of action.”

Note that BTC is trading at a discount on Coinbase relative to Binance as a sign of weak demand from US investors. Plus, Arkham Intelligence data shows that a whale moved over $1 billion worth of BTC to Coinbase on Thursday. Transfers to exchanges typically represent an investor intent to sell.

And watch for inflation concerns to creep back. The US PPI, which shows that price pressure is building in the pipeline, rose above the CPI in December for the first time since 2022. Pay attention!

What to see

• Crypto
  • January 17: Oral arguments at the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in KalshiEX LLC v. CFTC, in which the CFTC appeals the district court’s decision favoring Kalshi’s Congressional Control Contracts.
  • January 23: First deadline for a decision by the SEC on NYSE Arca’s December 3 proposal to list and trade shares of Grayscale Solana Trust (GSOL), a closed-end trust, as an ETF.
  • January 25: First deadline for SEC decisions on proposals for four new spot solana ETFs: Bitwise Solana ETF, Canary Solana ETF, 21Shares Core Solana ETF and VanEck Solana Trust, all of which are sponsored by the Cboe BZX Exchange.
  • February 4: MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) reports 4th quarter earnings before the market opens.
• Macro
  • 17 January at 8:30 a.m.: The US Census Bureau releases December’s monthly New Residential Construction report.
    • Building permits (provisional) Est. 1.46 million vs. previous. 1,493 million
    • Building permits MoM (Provisional) Prev. 5.2%.
    • Housing start estimated. 1.32 million vs. previous. 1,289 million
    • Housing starts MoM Prev. -1.8%.

Token Events

• Governance votes and calls
  • ApeChain votes on a renewed governance process where 75% of the cash balance in the chain must be sent to the DAO’s finance contract and the remaining 25% to the Ape Foundation for administrative and support purposes. Voting began on January 17 and will last for 13 days.
  • Aave DAO is discussing a joint incentive program with Polygon that would require $3 million to improve liquidity and adoption of Aave on the Polygon blockchain.
• Unlocks
  • January 17: ApeCoin (APE) unlocks 2.16% of its circulating supply, worth 18.1 million.
  • January 17: QuantixAI (QAI) unlocks 4.79% of its circulating supply, worth $21.28M
  • January 18: Ondo (ONDO) unlocks 134% of its circulating supply, worth $2.19 billion.
  • January 21: Fasttoken (FTN) unlocks 4.6% of circulating supply worth $76 million.
• The token is launched
  • January 17: Solv Protocol (SOLV) to be listed on Binance.

Conferences:

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• Litecoin (LTC) led the pack over the past 24 hours after a Nasdaq 19B-4 filing paved the way for the rollout of an LTC exchange-traded fund (ETF). The token rose 17% to overtake bitcoin cash (BCH) in terms of market cap.
• Ethereum developers confirmed that the mainnet Pectra upgrade will take place in March, with a series of hard forks planned on the Ethereum testnet in February. The upgrade will improve the functionality of the wallet and increase the initial stake limit to 2,048 ETH from 32 ETH. This increase means that larger stakers like Coinbase and restaking protocols will be able to control fewer validators, reducing complexity. Coinbase currently has tens of thousands of validators.
• Altcoin whales are aggressively buying solana (SOL) in the run-up to Donald Trump’s inauguration. One particular wallet, reported by Lookonchain, bought SOL for $2.49 million and withdrew another $3.94 million from Binance. It then deposited a total of 144,817 SOL ($30.4 million) on lending platform Kamino before borrowing $20 million in stablecoins. This is actually taking a long position on SOL, since when the value of the underlying asset increases, the user will have to pay less stablecoin.

Derivative positioning

• Litecoin is the best performing coin in terms of futures interest rate growth and positive CVD readings implying net buying pressure.
• HYPE stands out as overheated with annual funding rates in excess of 100%, according to Velo Data. The elevated funding rate indicates overcrowding in bullish bets.
• BTC’s annualized one-month futures basis on CME is up over 12%, surpassing ETH’s 11%. However, BTC, ETH CME futures open interest remains little changed and well below December highs.
• BTC, ETH options on Deribit show call bias.

Market movements:

• BTC is down 2.17% as of 16 ET Thursday at $102,319.71 (24 hours: +3.15%)
• ETH is up 3.13% to $3,424.04 (24h: +3.22%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 1.36% to 3,960.57 (24 hours: +4.36%)
• Ether staking yield is unchanged at 3.1%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0092% (10.12% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 109.02
• Gold is up 0.67% at $2,730.60/oz
• Silver is down 1.3% at $31.28/oz
• The Nikkei 225 closed -0.31% at 38,451.46
• The Hang Seng closed +0.31% at 19584.06,
• The FTSE is up 1.06% to 8,481.19
• The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.66% to 5,140.87
• The DJIA closed Thursday -0.16% at 43,153.13
• The S&P 500 closed -0.21% at 5,937.34
• The Nasdaq closed -0.89% at 19,338.29
• The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.23% at 24846.2
• The S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.41% at 2,230.95
• The US 10-year Treasury falls 2 bp to 4.6 per cent.
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 5,993.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.32% at 21,332.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 43,496.00

Bitcoin statistics:

• BTC Dominance: 57.49
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.0334
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 784 EH/s
• Hash price (spot): $57.0
• Total Fees: 7.34 BTC/$731,223
• CME Futures open interest: 178,755 BTC
• BTC Priced in Gold: 37.8 oz
• BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 10.75%

Technical Analysis

• The dollar index’s (DXY) rally has stalled, but the bullish trend line that characterizes the uptrend from 100 is still intact.
• A renewed bounce from trendline support could create headwinds for risk assets.

Crypto stocks

• MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed Thursday at $367 (+1.77%), up 3.26% to $378.98 in the premarket.
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $281.63 (+2.44%), up 2.68% to $289.28 in premarket.
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$28.77 (+3.01%).
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $18.3 (+0.83%), up 3.17% to $18.88 in the premarket.
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $13.29 (-1.29%), up 3.24% to $13.72 in premarket.
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $14.63 (+0.69%), up 1.71% to $14.88 in premarket.
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.18 (-0.18%), up 3.58% to $11.58 in the premarket.
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $24.60 (+0.12%), up 2.93% to $25.32 in the premarket.
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $58.24 (+3.8%), up 2.76% to $59.85 in the premarket.
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $37.87 (+7.1%), up 5.62% to $40 in the premarket.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $527.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $38.04 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.14M

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $166.59 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.64 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.57 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight flows

Today’s chart

• The chart shows trends in NEAR’s circulating supply that is staked or locked into the blockchain in exchange for rewards versus supply that is not staked.
• The rate at which NEAR holders are putting their coins into play is increasing, creating a bullish supply-demand dynamic for the token.

While you were sleeping

• Bitcoin’s ‘Coinbase Premium’ Muted Amid Reports, Trump Plans To Designate Crypto For National Policy (CoinDesk): Trump-elect reportedly plans to prioritize cryptocurrency with executive order, but BTC price gap between Coinbase and Binance signals lack of enthusiasm among US investors ahead of his inauguration on 20 January.
• XRP volume overtakes Bitcoin on Coinbase as US investor interest grows (CoinDesk): XRP accounted for 25% of Coinbase’s trading volume in the past 24 hours, driven by rising US interest and speculation about an XRP ETF.
• Bitcoin Miners Have Started 2025 on a Strong Footing, Says JPMorgan (CoinDesk): JPMorgan notes that 12 of 14 mining stocks monitored delivered stronger returns than bitcoin at the start of the year, supported by a 51% annual hash rate increase.
• BOJ Likely to Keep Hawkish Policy Pledge, Raise Rates Next Week, Sources Say (Reuters): Markets predict an 80% chance the Bank of Japan will raise rates to 0.5% next week, the highest since 2008.
• China hits 5% GDP target, but Trump tariffs threaten further growth (Bloomberg): China achieved 5% GDP growth in 2024, driven by stimulus and strong exports. Upcoming US tariffs and weak domestic demand could hinder future progress.
• European markets near record highs ahead of earnings season (Euronews): European stocks rose this week, with Germany’s DAX hitting record highs over the past two sessions. The Euro Stoxx 600 rose 0.81%, driven by strong luxury and technology earnings and expectations of more dovish ECB policy.

In the ether