Memecoins, DeFi lead declines as caution seeps in: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market has grown gloomier, with recent outperformers such as memecoins taking bigger hits than major cryptocurrencies as sentiment on Wall Street turned cautious ahead of Friday's jobs data and the Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs.

The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) lost 8.6% in the past 24 hours, leading losses across all other sectors. The DeFi Select and Metaverse Indexes both fell more than 5%.

Bitcoin BTC$67.271,38, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, dipped below $90,000 during Asian hours, extending Wednesday's pullback from over $93,600 and was recently trading nearly 2% lower. Charts showed immediate support at around $89,200, stemming from the widely tracked 50-day simple moving average.

"The end of the week will bring an answer to the question of whether this curve has become a support level or whether we saw a false breakout at the start of the year," Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at The FXPro, said in an email.

Other majors such as ether (ETH), solana (SOL), XRP (XRP) and DOGE$0.1002 traded 2% to 6% lower, while smaller coins such as POL, CC and WLFI rose around 2%. The privacy-focused zcash (ZEC) crashed 15% after the development team behind the token left Bootstrap, a nonprofit organization created to support the project.

The risk-off mood follows renewed outflows from the U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The ETFs suffered net outflows of $729 million, reversing over 50% of the $1.16 billion in inflows of the first two days of the week. The appetite remains weak for ether, XRP and SOL ETFs too.

In other key developments, bitcoin's BVIV index, which measures the 30-day implied volatility, remains little changed at around 45% for the fifth straight day, despite signs of an upswing in its Wall Street counterpart, the VIX index.

The VIX bounced to nearly 15%, the highest since Dec. 19, indicating caution ahead of Friday's jobs report, which could influence interest-rate expectations. Further, participants on prediction market Kalshi assign a 30% probability to the Supreme Court ruling in favor of U.S. import tariffs, implying a 70% chance that they are set aside. The decision could breed volatility across all asset classes, including BTC.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback's value against major fiat currencies, held steady near 98.70, keeping its recent gains to offer bearish cues to risk assets. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Crypto
  • Jan. 8, 11 a.m.: Zebec Network (ZBCN) AMA (“Product Roadmap & Tokenomics for 2026”) on X.
• Macro
  • Jan. 8, 7 a.m.: Mexico Dec. Consumer Price Inflation. Headline Rate YoY Est. 3.8%; Headline Rate MoM Est. 0.4; Core Rate YoY Est. 4.34%; Core Rate MoM Est. 0.42%.
  • Jan. 8, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Jobless Claims. Initial (for week ended Jan. 3) Est. 210K; Continuing (for week ended Dec. 27) Est. 1900K.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Nothing scheduled.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Governance votes & calls
  • Jan. 8: CELO$0.08432 to host a community call on Celo tokenomics.
  • Jan. 8: Olympus DAO (OHM) to host a community call on Discord.
  • Jan. 8: JTO$0.3092 to host a community call on JIP-31.
• Unlocks
  • No major unlocks.
• Token Launches
  • Jan. 8: Lighter (LIT) to be listed on Bitrue.
  • Jan. 8: ByteNova (BYTE) to be listed on Bitget, KuCoin, MEXC, and others.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Day 2 of 2: BUIDL Europe 2026 (Lisbon, Portugal)

Market Movements

• BTC is down 1.19% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $89,924.42 (24hrs: -2.05%)
• ETH is down 1.23% at $3,109.06 (24hrs: -3.33%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1.91% at 2,880.86 (24hrs: -3.72%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 2.86%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0037% (-4.0462% annualized) on OKX

• DXY is unchanged at 98.77
• Gold futures are down 0.23% at $4,439.00
• Silver futures are down 1.68% at $75.84
• Nikkei 225 closed down 1.63% at 51,117.26
• Hang Seng closed down 1.17% at 26,149.31
• FTSE 100 is down 0.16% at 10,032.08
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.14% at 5,915.44
• DJIA closed on Wednesday down 0.94% at 48,996.08
• S&P 500 closed down 0.34% at 6,920.93
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.16% at 23,584.28
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.84% at 32,135.50
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 4 bps at 4.14%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.24% at 6,946.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.32% at 25,756.75
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 0.3% at 49,093.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 58.99% (+0.06%)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03457 (-0.32%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,057 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $38.82
• Total fees: 2.6 BTC / $238,790
• CME Futures Open Interest: 112,490 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 21.4 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 6.03%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows privacy-focused ZEC's daily price swings in candlestick format.
• Prices dropped sharply today, diving below the bullish trendline support.
• The breakdown, coupled with the negative MACD histogram, a momentum indicator, suggests scope for deeper losses ahead.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Wednesday at $245.93 (-1.85%), -1.26% at $242.83 in pre-market
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $80.59 (-5.02%), -0.31% at $80.34
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $25.51 (-2.19%), -0.59% at $25.36
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $39.25 (-4.85%), -0.61% at $39.01
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $10.08 (-2.23%), -1.39% at $9.94
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.27 (+1.94%), -1.31% at $15.07
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.24 (-3.28%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.93 (-0.50%), -1.51% at $11.75
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $43.31 (-3.72%), -0.27% at $43.20
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $16.23 (+1.95%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $161.83 (+2.44%), -1.08% at $160.09
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $20.68 (-2.73%)
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $10.14 (-1.93%), -0.49% at $10.09
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.15 (-5.70%), unchanged in pre-market
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.42 (-7.79%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$486.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $57.03 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.31 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$98.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $12.71 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.19 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• Trump-linked World Liberty Financial-connected firm applies for federal bank charter (CoinDesk): The proposed trust would enable the firm to directly issue, custody and redeem its USD1 stablecoin under OCC oversight, targeting institutional clients such as exchanges and market makers.
• Zcash developer team behind ECC quits after governance clash with Bootstrap board (CoinDesk): The CEO of Electric Coin Company, a key developer of Zcash, wrote on X that a majority of Bootstrap’s board members had moved into "clear misalignment" with what he described as Zcash’s mission.
• This is what's (currently) in the way of U.S. crypto market structure bill harmony (CoinDesk): Disputes over ethics rules for officials, DeFi oversight, stablecoin yield limits and regulator staffing remain unresolved as lawmakers rush toward Senate markups.
• Colombia looks to turn the page with U.S. after Petro–Trump call (Bloomberg): Trump invited Petro to Washington, and both sides agreed to reopen direct communication channels and to cooperate on drugs and Venezuela following earlier U.S. threats against Colombia.