- BTC reclaimed $100k, albeit briefly, after cooler-than-expected inflation knowledge
- XRP reclaimed its 7-year excessive whereas ONDO confronted $2.4B token unlock strain.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin [BTC] bounced off and retested $100k following cooler-than-expected U.S inflation knowledge, lifting the whole market. The inflation knowledge, CPI (Client Worth Index), got here in at 3.2% YoY(year-on-year) in opposition to the three.3% projected by economists.
This dampened inflation fears and Fed charge reduce outlook that had earlier tanked markets and dragged BTC under $90k.
Price declaring, nonetheless, that the markets are nonetheless pricing a 97% probability of an ‘unchanged’ Fed rate of interest within the subsequent assembly in the direction of the top of January.
AI brokers lead restoration, XRP hits new excessive
Following BTC’s rally, Solana [SOL] and Ethereum [ETH] posted 14% and 12% features, respectively. Nevertheless, the AI agent sector noticed an even bigger rally, with Virtuals Protocol [VIRTUAL] and Aixbt [AIXBT] recording features of 25% and 35%, respectively.
Different tokens with the AI agent narrative, like Fartcoin and Cookie, additionally logged double-digit features. In reality, some agent tokens posted triple-digit features in a day too.
Nevertheless, the important thing market spotlight was XRP. At press time, the altcoin hit a excessive of $3.38, crossing its 2021 cycle excessive within the course of. The feat successfully prolonged its breakout features to +40%, with the altcoin unfazed by authorized developments because the SEC filed an attraction in opposition to Ripple Labs.
Supply: XRP/USDT, TradingView
The company is dissatisfied with U.S District Choose Analisa Torres’s ruling that labeled XRP as non-security and lowered Ripple Labs’ $2B tremendous to $125M.
Regardless of hypothesis that the company wouldn’t attraction the case, it did so, irking Ripple’s management, who termed the transfer a waste of taxpayer cash. Nevertheless, there are experiences that the brand new Trump administration may ‘freeze’ some crypto lawsuits, together with Ripple’s case.
Lastly, the RWA (real-asset tokenization) market chief, Ondo [ONDO], will unlock practically 800M tokens (price $2.4B) on 18 January.
This can translate to 134% of its market cap and will expose the token to vital volatility and promoting strain. Regardless of a broader market restoration at press time, the altcoin is already down by 42%. Priced at $1.2, it hasn’t recovered from December’s sell-off to date.
Supply: CryptoRank
Lastly, subsequent week marks the D-day of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, and a brand new chapter for crypto might be ushered in.
Because the market shifts focus to this historic occasion, buying and selling agency QCP Capital famous larger curiosity from Choices merchants within the $100k-$110k value targets. The agency acknowledged,
“On the options front, BTC JAN calls dominated the market yesterday as traders adopted an increasingly bullish view, snapping up contracts with strikes ranging from $100K to $110K. This is a promising sign as we head into March which currently holds the highest concentration of open interest at the $120K strike.”
