Crypto Daybook Americas: Litecoin Leads on Optimistic ETF Signal as Market Rallies After Powell Talks

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market is trading positively with the Fed risk event out of the way, focusing on positives such as the crypto-friendly president in the White House, the renewed upswing in Tether's market, and the bullish Chinese New Year effect.

Among cryptocurrencies with $5 billion-plus market valuations, the standout performer is litecoin (LTC), the silver to bitcoin's gold, which has jumped more than 11% since the early Asian hours compared with gains of 1% to 3% for the rest. It is the third-best performing of the top 100 coins in the past 24 hours, thanks to the SEC acknowledging Canary Capital’s Litecoin ETF proposal. That has opened for public feedback, a move that hints at potential approval in the coming months.

"This is the first altcoin ETF filing to get acknowledged," Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on X, noting that the proposal is the one to make the most progress in regulatory requirements.

A potential listing could be as positive for LTC as it has been for BTC and ETH. Note that despite the price surge to $130, LTC is still well short of the $410 record high hit in 2021. Its price chart shows a constructive outlook (check out the Technical Analysis section below).

In other key developments, on-chain activity tracked by Glassnode shows a lower level of retail participation in BTC right than in November. That's encouraging for bulls looking for cues on whether the latest move above $100,000 is sustainable. Meanwhile, Lombard Finance is becoming more dominant in the bitcoin staking space, capturing a giant share of the total BTC staked this week.

The number of Ethereum's active addresses recently topped a March 2024 high, signaling a renewed uptick in the on-chain activity, according to IntoTheBlock data. Ether's price has crossed above $3,200 but is yet to clear the bearish trendline connecting the Dec. 16 and Jan. 6 highs.

In traditional markets, the yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note has dropped to 4.50%, revisiting Monday's low in a bullish move for risk assets. Those bullish on BTC may be hoping for U.S. core PCE inflation to come in softer-than-expected later today, driving the bond yield even lower.

That said, we will also get fourth-quarter GDP alongside the weekly jobless claims report. Meanwhile, European gas prices have surged to a 15-month high and could inject some volatility into risk assets. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • Jan. 31: Crypto.com is suspending purchases of cryptocurrencies USDT, WBTC, DAI, PAX, PAXG, PYUSD, CDCETH, CDCSOL, LCRO, and XSGD in the EU to comply with MiCA regulations. Withdrawals will be supported through Q1.
  • Feb. 2, 8:00 p.m.: Core blockchain Athena hard fork network upgrade (v1.0.14)
  • Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 PEPE.
  • Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based layer-2 mainnet.
  • Feb. 5 (after market close): MicroStrategy (MSTR) Q4 FY 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 6, 8:00 a.m.: Shentu Chain network upgrade (v2.14.0).
  • Feb. 11 (after market close): Exodus Movement (EXOD) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 12 (before market open): Hut 8 (HUT) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 13 (after market close): Coinbase Global (COIN) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 15: Qtum (QTUM) hard fork network upgrade at block 4,590,000.
  • Feb. 18 (after market close): Semler Scientific (SMLR) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 20 (after market close): Block (XYZ) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 26: MARA Holdings (MARA) Q4 2024 earnings.
  • Feb. 27: Riot Platforms (RIOT) Q4 2024 earnings.
• Macro
  • Jan. 30: At a meeting of the Czech National Bank board, Governor Aleš Michl is presenting his plan for the central bank to adopt bitcoin as a reserve asset.
  • Jan. 30, 8:15 a.m.: The ECB announces its interest-rate decision. This is followed by a press conference at 8:45 a.m. Livestream link.
    • Deposit Facility Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 3%.
    • Main Refinancing Rate Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 3.15%.
    • Marginal Lending Rate Prev. 3.4%.
  • Jan. 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases Q4 Advance GDP report.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 2.8% vs. Prev. 3.1%.
    • GDP Price Index QoQ Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 1.9%.
    • Initial Jobless Claims for Week Ended Jan. 25 Est. 220K vs. Prev. 223K.
    • Continuing Jobless Claims Est. 18900K vs. Prev. 1899K.
    • Core PCE Prices QoQ Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.2%.
    • PCE Prices QoQ Prev. 1.5%.
    • Real Consumer Spending QoQ Prev. 3.7%.
  • Jan. 30, 4:30 p.m.: The Federal Reserve releases H.4.1 report on Factors Affecting Reserve Balances for the week ended Jan. 29.
    • Balance Sheet Prev. $6.83T.
  • Jan. 30, 6:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications releases December unemployment report.
    • Unemployment Rate Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.5%.
  • Jan. 30, 6:50 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry releases December industrial production (preliminary) report.
    • Industrial Production MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. -2.2%.
    • Industrial Production YoY Prev. -2.8%.
    • Retail Sales MoM Prev. 1.8%.
    • Retail Sales YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 2.8%.
  • Jan. 31, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases December 2024’s Personal Income and Outlays report.
    • Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.1%.
    • Core PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.8% vs. Prev. 2.8%.
    • PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.1%.
    • PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.4%.

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Rarible DAO is voting whether to grant the Rari Foundation a mandate to collaborate with Rarible on implementing multichain protocol fee collection and designing a primary protocol fee structure for NFT mints.
  • CoW DAO is voting on granting its Core Treasury Team an allocation of 80 million COW tokens to support liquidity provisioning, treasury growth, and product development for CoW DAO from 2025 to 2028.
  • Synapse DAO is voting on upgrading SYN token to CX from the Cortex Protocol and holders of both enjoy the same value.
• Unlocks
  • Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $46.39 million.
  • Feb. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock about 2.13% of its circulating supply worth $261.91 million.
  • Feb. 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock about 1.34% of its circulating supply worth $29.53 million.
• Token Listings
  • Jan. 30: Pepe (PEPE) to be listed on Bitflyer.

Conferences:

• Day 2 of 3: Crypto Peaks 2025 (Palisades, California)
• Jan. 30, 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: International DeFi Day 2025 (online)
• Day 1 of 2: Ethereum Zurich 2025
• Day 1 of 2: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)
• Day 1 of 3: Crypto Gathering 2025 (Miami Beach, Florida)
• Day 1 of 3: CryptoXR 2025 (Auxerre, France)
• Day 1 of 4: Oasis Onchain 2025 (Nassau, Bahamas)
• Day 1 of 6: The Satoshi Roundtable (Dubai)
• Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)
• Feb. 5-6: The 14th Global Blockchain Congress (Dubai)
• Feb. 6: Ondo Summit 2025 (New York).
• Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)
• Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.
• Feb. 18-20: CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong
• Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong
• Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver, Colorado)
• Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• The JELLY token soared to a $200 million market capitalization in latest example of Web2 startup founders launching their own tokens.
• The token was launched by Sam Lessin, a co-founder of Venmo, to bootstrap and gain traction for a new video chat app called Jelly.
• JELLY is integrated into Jelly eSports, which includes features like Solana Boxes, a loot box game where players can win luxury items by spinning with SOL or JELLY tokens.
• Fees from using JELLY are dynamically allocated to burning, staking, liquidity provision incentives, gamification and team support.

Derivatives Positioning

• Litecoin's perpetual futures open interest has surged nearly 20% in 24 hours with positive net cumulative volume delta (CVD) signaling net buying.
• TRX, SUI and BTC also boast of a positive net CVD.
• BTC and ETH CME futures premiums tick higher in a sign of traders chasing bullish exposure.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH calls continue to trade pricier than puts. Block flows have been mixed, featuring calendar spreads and short vol strategies like short straddles.

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 0.86% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday to $105,190.06 (24hrs: +2.46%)
• ETH is up 2.63% at $3,134.98 (24hrs: +2.62%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 1.74% to 3,826.50 (24hrs: +2.41%)
• CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps to 3.03%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0092% (10.12% annualized) on Binance
• DXY is unchanged at 107.98
• Gold is up 0.91% at $2,778.26/oz
• Silver is up 1.11% at $31.05/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.25% to 39,513.97
• Hang Seng closed +0.14% to 20,225.11
• FTSE is up 0.34% at 8,587.03
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.73% at 5,269.01
• DJIA closed on Wednesday -0.31% to 44,713.52
• S&P 500 closed -0.47% to 6,039.31
• Nasdaq closed -0.51% to 19,632.32
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.21% to 25,473.30
• S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged at 2,336.48
• U.S. 10-year Treasury is down 3 bps at 4.51%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.33% at 6,087.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.49% at 21,627.75
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.38% at 45,062.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 59.53 (-0.51%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.03054 (1.73%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 774 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $62.2
• Total Fees: 4.82 BTC/ $494,506
• CME Futures Open Interest: 170,105 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 38.0 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 10.80%

Technical Analysis

• LTC has broken out of a multimonth basing pattern, indicating a renewed bullish shift in momentum.
• Resistance is seen at $150 followed by $300, with support at $86, the December swing low.

Crypto Equities

• MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $341.25 (+1.58%), up 0.87% at $343.86 in pre-market.
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $291.00 (+3.26%), up 0.69% at $293 in pre-market.
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$29.09 (+4.38%).
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $18.42 (+0.88%), up 0.87% at $18.58 in pre-market.
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.22 (+2.47%), up 1.52% at $11.39 in pre-market.
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $11.88 (+1.33%), up 3.66% at $11.88 in pre-market.
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $10.26 (+2.09%), up 1.07% at $10.37 in pre-market.
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $11.22 (+1.58%).
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $52.08 (-0.42%), down 0.15% at $52 in pre-market.
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $89.30 (+11.4%), up 5.88% at $94.55 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $92 million
• Cumulative net flows: $39.6 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.17 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$4.82 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.66 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.6 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows BTC spent by wallets owned by small and retail investors and whales.
• Small addresses are currently spending $10.7 million in BTC each hour, a 48% decline from the peak of $20.6 million in November.

While You Were Sleeping

• Crypto Consortium T3 Helps Spanish Authorities Freeze $26.4M Linked to Crime Syndicate (CoinDesk): The T3 Financial Crime Unit, comprising investigators from Tron, Tether and TRM Labs, helped dismantle a European crime syndicate laundering money through cryptocurrency.
• Pudgy Penguins’ Layer 2 Network, Abstract, Struggles to Attract Liquidity (CoinDesk): Abstract has struggled to attract liquidity since starting up on Jan. 27 with heavy transaction volume.
• Polymarket Still Skeptical of U.S Bitcoin Reserve Despite David Sacks' Assurance (CoinDesk): The Polymarket prediction market assigns just a 16% chance that President Trump will establish a U.S. bitcoin reserve.
• Bitcoin Extends Advance After Fed Meeting, Powell Commentary (Bloomberg): Bitcoin climbed past $105,000 early Thursday after comments some traders saw as pro-crypto by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at Wednesday’s press conference.
• Trump Lashes Out at a Favorite Nemesis: The Federal Reserve (The Wall Street Journal): Shortly after the Fed’s FOMC press conference ended, President Trump posted on Truth Social criticizing Powell for his handling of U.S. inflation.
• France’s Shrinking Economy Betrays Urgent Need to Overcome Budget Wrangles (CNBC): France’s economy contracted 0.1% in Q4, heightening urgency for Prime Minister François Bayrou to navigate political deadlock and pass a 2025 budget.

In the Ether