MARKETS week ahead: January 14 - 20
Last week in the news
At the start of this year Bitcoin reached another important milestone in its further acceptance into the mainstream. During the previous week the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first spot BTC Exchange Traded Fund. Through this milestone, BTC managed to secure its future on the mainstream markets. How it will secure the destiny of other altcoins is to be seen. During the first trading week in this year, markets were traded with a positive sentiment. The US Treasury yields continue with downtrend in expectation of rate cuts during this year, while gold continues to hold above $2K, following USD recent weakness as well as Middle East tensions.
A long awaited news regarding approval of the first spot BTC ETF finally came to fruition. During the previous week the US SEC approved filings from several large Wall Street names, among which, the largest one is certainly the BlackRock asset manager. This represents a huge milestone for BTC and its wider acceptance among market participants. With this move, large institutional investors will have an approach to the crypto market, through traditional market channels. In this manner, the existence of the BTC is secured for the future period. How this will affect other altcoins is to be seen in the future. The SEC is still of opinion that the majority of these are simple securities in a digital form, which needs to be aligned with already existing law on securities in the US. This is also a relevant question when it comes to existing filings for the first ETH ETF pending SEC`s approval. Anyway, regardless of the BTC`s win at the beginning of this year, there are emerging challenges in the tech and financial industries which will compete with the BTC during the coming years. In this sense, a regulation within the crypto industry comes at the first place and is followed with the rise of AI in finance and other industries, as well as growth and innovations of alternative finance within the field of FinTech, DeFi and other non-traditional financial channels. It all implies that the BTC will have to put additional effort during the year, in order to continue to attract investor’s funds.
As investors are relieved by information that BTC ETF is approved, BlackRock`s CEO, Larry Fink, is now eyeing the approval of the first ETH ETF. In his interview to CNBC, Fink supported further tokenization, noting “I really do believe this is where we are going to be going”. It was also interesting to hear his standing that Bitcoin is an asset class that can hedge investor’s funds against geopolitical risks. BlackRock`s product iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has its debut on Thursday, after the SEC approved its product, with roughly a $1billion in trading volume.
Previous week was also the one where US banks were posting their quarterly results. The environment of significantly increased interest rates left its mark on bank earnings, as well as few takeovers which occurred during the previous year, after several bank collapses. JPMorgan was among those whose earnings slipped by 15% q/q. The bank's earnings were also hit by $743 million in investment losses due to the rescue of banks in the banking crisis during the year 2023 in the US.
Crypto market cap
A long awaited first spot BTC ETF has been approved by the SEC, but the market turned the price of crypto coins to the downside, instead to the upside. Many analysts were predicting that the price of BTC might skyrocket after the approval of the first ETF, noting some figures of even $100K, but it did not happen. Obvious question is if there is something wrong with their analysis or something else happened on the market? Well, in economic theory which relates to traditional markets, there is a topic called market efficiency. The core of this theory is that the market will always price all known information at this moment so that the current price of some asset will reflect its real price. As BTC is getting more and more involved in the traditional markets, the rules of traditional markets will more and more apply to this asset. With wider acceptance of the BTC, we can expect that its price will see more stability in the future period. This is exactly what had happened to BTC. Namely, as of the last quarter of 2023 with the first market rumor that the first spot BTC ETF could be approved, the majority of investors, but also market speculators, the price of BTC headed toward the $45K. This was a huge move to the upside, when the market reached its top. After the SEC`s approval, the balloon which was heating the market was released, so the majority of speculators could pick their profits and move their funds into some other promising asset which would provide them excess profits. At the same time, one should not forget that there is a developed derivative market for crypto assets, in which some leveraged positions were closed, supporting in this manner the spiral to the downside. At one moment, some investors will see a good purchasing opportunity, when the downtrend will be halted and BTC will start its new cycle, but this time, on much healthier grounds from the previous one. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat during the previous week, moving around $1.64 trillion. Daily trading volumes were significantly increased to the level of $174B on a daily basis, which was not recently seen on the crypto market. During the first two days since the approval of BTC, around $4.6B in volume was traded on the market, which significantly contributed to the overall trading volumes.
With the approval of the first BTC ETF, it was Ether who actually gained the most. BTC lost some of its value, around $ 20B, during the previous week, due to reasons mentioned above. At the same time, the price of ETH was up by almost 12% on a weekly basis, adding around $ 33B to its market cap. This is again sort of speculative move, considering market expectations that the first ETH ETF will soon be approved after the BTC`s fund was approved. Certainly, these are only expectations, while the certainty of it is known only to the SEC. When it comes to other altcoins, there was sort of rebalancing between different coins on the market. On one side, there were those with significant gain during the week, while on the other side, there were those with significant loss during the week. Coins like Maker, Filecoin, Polygon, Tron, Uniswap, even Binance Coin were among those who gained during the week. On the opposite side were coins like XRP, LINK, DOGE, ADA, Monero, Solana, Algorand which were among losing altcoins.
As for coins in circulation, there has been significant activity during the previous week. It seems that the approval of the BTC ETF has moved many coins which were staked somewhere to get back into the market again. There has been an increased volume of circulating coins for the majority of altcoins. Tether managed to increase its market cap and value by increasing its circulating coins by more than 4% on a weekly basis, which has not been recently seen with this coin.
Crypto futures market
The crypto futures market reflected developments on the spot market, but only through the short term futures. While BTC short term futures were last traded down by more than 2%, at the same time, ETH futures were up by more than 7%. Developments on BTC longer term futures were positive, and were traded by more than 5% higher from the end of the previous week. Futures maturing in December 2024 were traded at price $49.785 or 5.16% higher, while major development was with futures maturing in March 2025 where the price for the first time reached the $50K level, ending the week at $50.710. This expresses positive investors sentiment over the future price of the BTC.
Similar situation was also with ETH longer term futures. They ended the week around 13% higher from the week before, where December 2024 was last traded at price $2.743, while March 2025 ended the week at $2.782 or 15.5% higher from the week before. Regardless of the positive market movements, it is still evident that investors are a bit skeptical when ETH`s future value is in question.
At the start of this year Bitcoin reached another important milestone in its further acceptance into the mainstream. During the previous week the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first spot BTC Exchange Traded Fund. Through this milestone, BTC managed to secure its future on the mainstream markets. How it will secure the destiny of other altcoins is to be seen. During the first trading week in this year, markets were traded with a positive sentiment. The US Treasury yields continue with downtrend in expectation of rate cuts during this year, while gold continues to hold above $2K, following USD recent weakness as well as Middle East tensions.
A long awaited news regarding approval of the first spot BTC ETF finally came to fruition. During the previous week the US SEC approved filings from several large Wall Street names, among which, the largest one is certainly the BlackRock asset manager. This represents a huge milestone for BTC and its wider acceptance among market participants. With this move, large institutional investors will have an approach to the crypto market, through traditional market channels. In this manner, the existence of the BTC is secured for the future period. How this will affect other altcoins is to be seen in the future. The SEC is still of opinion that the majority of these are simple securities in a digital form, which needs to be aligned with already existing law on securities in the US. This is also a relevant question when it comes to existing filings for the first ETH ETF pending SEC`s approval. Anyway, regardless of the BTC`s win at the beginning of this year, there are emerging challenges in the tech and financial industries which will compete with the BTC during the coming years. In this sense, a regulation within the crypto industry comes at the first place and is followed with the rise of AI in finance and other industries, as well as growth and innovations of alternative finance within the field of FinTech, DeFi and other non-traditional financial channels. It all implies that the BTC will have to put additional effort during the year, in order to continue to attract investor’s funds.
As investors are relieved by information that BTC ETF is approved, BlackRock`s CEO, Larry Fink, is now eyeing the approval of the first ETH ETF. In his interview to CNBC, Fink supported further tokenization, noting “I really do believe this is where we are going to be going”. It was also interesting to hear his standing that Bitcoin is an asset class that can hedge investor’s funds against geopolitical risks. BlackRock`s product iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has its debut on Thursday, after the SEC approved its product, with roughly a $1billion in trading volume.
Previous week was also the one where US banks were posting their quarterly results. The environment of significantly increased interest rates left its mark on bank earnings, as well as few takeovers which occurred during the previous year, after several bank collapses. JPMorgan was among those whose earnings slipped by 15% q/q. The bank's earnings were also hit by $743 million in investment losses due to the rescue of banks in the banking crisis during the year 2023 in the US.
Crypto market cap
A long awaited first spot BTC ETF has been approved by the SEC, but the market turned the price of crypto coins to the downside, instead to the upside. Many analysts were predicting that the price of BTC might skyrocket after the approval of the first ETF, noting some figures of even $100K, but it did not happen. Obvious question is if there is something wrong with their analysis or something else happened on the market? Well, in economic theory which relates to traditional markets, there is a topic called market efficiency. The core of this theory is that the market will always price all known information at this moment so that the current price of some asset will reflect its real price. As BTC is getting more and more involved in the traditional markets, the rules of traditional markets will more and more apply to this asset. With wider acceptance of the BTC, we can expect that its price will see more stability in the future period. This is exactly what had happened to BTC. Namely, as of the last quarter of 2023 with the first market rumor that the first spot BTC ETF could be approved, the majority of investors, but also market speculators, the price of BTC headed toward the $45K. This was a huge move to the upside, when the market reached its top. After the SEC`s approval, the balloon which was heating the market was released, so the majority of speculators could pick their profits and move their funds into some other promising asset which would provide them excess profits. At the same time, one should not forget that there is a developed derivative market for crypto assets, in which some leveraged positions were closed, supporting in this manner the spiral to the downside. At one moment, some investors will see a good purchasing opportunity, when the downtrend will be halted and BTC will start its new cycle, but this time, on much healthier grounds from the previous one. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat during the previous week, moving around $1.64 trillion. Daily trading volumes were significantly increased to the level of $174B on a daily basis, which was not recently seen on the crypto market. During the first two days since the approval of BTC, around $4.6B in volume was traded on the market, which significantly contributed to the overall trading volumes.
With the approval of the first BTC ETF, it was Ether who actually gained the most. BTC lost some of its value, around $ 20B, during the previous week, due to reasons mentioned above. At the same time, the price of ETH was up by almost 12% on a weekly basis, adding around $ 33B to its market cap. This is again sort of speculative move, considering market expectations that the first ETH ETF will soon be approved after the BTC`s fund was approved. Certainly, these are only expectations, while the certainty of it is known only to the SEC. When it comes to other altcoins, there was sort of rebalancing between different coins on the market. On one side, there were those with significant gain during the week, while on the other side, there were those with significant loss during the week. Coins like Maker, Filecoin, Polygon, Tron, Uniswap, even Binance Coin were among those who gained during the week. On the opposite side were coins like XRP, LINK, DOGE, ADA, Monero, Solana, Algorand which were among losing altcoins.
As for coins in circulation, there has been significant activity during the previous week. It seems that the approval of the BTC ETF has moved many coins which were staked somewhere to get back into the market again. There has been an increased volume of circulating coins for the majority of altcoins. Tether managed to increase its market cap and value by increasing its circulating coins by more than 4% on a weekly basis, which has not been recently seen with this coin.
Crypto futures market
The crypto futures market reflected developments on the spot market, but only through the short term futures. While BTC short term futures were last traded down by more than 2%, at the same time, ETH futures were up by more than 7%. Developments on BTC longer term futures were positive, and were traded by more than 5% higher from the end of the previous week. Futures maturing in December 2024 were traded at price $49.785 or 5.16% higher, while major development was with futures maturing in March 2025 where the price for the first time reached the $50K level, ending the week at $50.710. This expresses positive investors sentiment over the future price of the BTC.
Similar situation was also with ETH longer term futures. They ended the week around 13% higher from the week before, where December 2024 was last traded at price $2.743, while March 2025 ended the week at $2.782 or 15.5% higher from the week before. Regardless of the positive market movements, it is still evident that investors are a bit skeptical when ETH`s future value is in question.
