Cold snap lingers
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 9th January 2025.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Sui Stays Solid After Surge
Bitcoin's two-day slide is impacting the mojo of streaking Sui (SUI). The result, as it turns out, is only a flesh wound.
Amidst a surge of interest in the DeFi sector, SUI recently hit an all-time high of $5.35. That ATH occurred just this past Sunday. SUI's pulled back, for sure. At last check this morning, SUI, which is the 14th-largest coin, was $4.52, per CoinGecko.
Nevertheless, looking at the Top 30, SUI is the only digital ducat with even a trace of green residue on the chart. SUI is up 3.3% over the past week.
What's down
Well That's A Bearish Catalyst
The crypto market continued to slide on Wednesday and into Thursday as a variety of still-in-play positive catalysts took a backseat to nearer-term fear factors. Chiefly among them: the U.S. government's court-approved green light to sell a fat stack of Silk-Road-seizure-related Bitcoins (69,370 of them, worth about $6.5 billion).
The news of the impending dump follows a protracted legal battle between the DOJ and a dogged investment-firm plaintiff seeking ownership of the coins by way of a related bankruptcy estate claim. Make no mistake, the DOJ does intend to liquidate, teeing up one of history’s biggest digital asset sales. BTC's spot price? When the news broke, it quickly crumpled, going from $95K to slightly below $93K.
Meanwhile, spot BTC ETFs saw $582M worth of outflows yesterday with the Fed indicating (via the published minutes of a meeting held last month) that inflation concerns remain at the fore. It was the second-worst daily outflow from BTC ETFs ever recorded.
As of Thursday, at 9:26 a.m. (EST), the largest crypto was roughly $92.3K following a 24-hour loss of 3.3%, according to CoinGecko.
What's next
At Least One Major Coin Getting Likes
The incoming Trump administration might well have designs on a strategic Bitcoin reserve. The outgoing Biden administration, however, does not.
Selling the Silk Road stash will be the purview of the U.S. Marshals Service in conjunction with the recent court ruling. A DOJ spokesperson said the BTC will be liquidated because of concerns over price volatility. Nevertheless, social media sentiment surrounding BTC remains neutral, per Santiment.
The same can't be said for Ethereum. Crowd sentiment for ETH is at 2 out of 5, or slightly bearish, per Santiment. ETH, second-largest crypto, has lost 5.5% since last Thursday, while BTC is down 3.8% in that span.
Merely three weeks ago, ETH reacquainted with the psychologically important $4,000 mark albeit for the briefest of spells. "As altcoins have declined after following BTC's lead, ETH is now looking to just stay above the $3,000 level," Santiment said. "If this gets breached, expect panic."
Slightly bullish sentiment surrounds the No. 3 coin XRP which is five weeks removed from a parabolic bender in which its value rocketed 455% in 30 days after months of stagnation.
The Santiment crowd sentiment score for XRP remains 4 out of 5. Seems everybody likes a winner. "Ever since the massive surge in XRP price," Santiment said, "there has been an increased level of optimism from the crowd."
