Senate bill, ETF flows pull market in conflicting directions: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Major cryptocurrencies are a picture of calm as the week's two dominant themes — the delay of a U.S. crypto bill and spot ETF inflows — offer contrasting stories.

The Senate Banking Committee's delay in discussing the market structure bill, which includes a proposal to ban stablecoin yield payments, has soured the industry mood, with Coinbase Global (COIN) withdrawing its backing for the legislation. This serves as a reality check: Legal hurdles remain sticky and complex, even under President Donald Trump's pro-crypto administration.

Some analysts have warned that a failure to pass this bill could trigger a crypto winter, a prolonged downturn like the ones in 2022 and 2018.

On the other hand, renewed inflows into U.S.-listed spot exchange-traded funds signal bullishness. These ETFs have attracted a net $1.81 billion this week, the largest inflow since October, $120,000, according to SoSoValue data. Bitfinex analysts view this as institutional re-entry and structural accumulation, not speculative leverage.

Bitcoin's BTC$69,614.17 annualized 30-day implied volatility has fallen below 40%, the lowest since Oct. 5 when the largest cryptocurrency traded near record highs above $120,000. It means that traders are now pricing an average daily move of 2.5% over the next four weeks, hardly extraordinary.

Bitcoin was recently trading near $95,200, down 1.6% over 24 hours, with major altcoins such as ether ETH$2,081.39, solana SOL$87.85, XRP XRP$1.4540 and DOGE$0.09687 registering slightly bigger losses. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index has dropped over 3%, the biggest loss among all other sectors.

Sidrah Fariq, the global head of retail sales and business development at derivatives exchange Deribit, said the market needs a clear bullish catalyst for the next leg higher.

"Market sentiment remains cautious yet constructive as investors continue to focus on macro uncertainties and while there is growing discussion around improving liquidity conditions, crypto markets continue to await a clear catalyst and additional tailwinds for a sustained upside breakout," Fariq told CoinDesk.

In traditional markets, the Dollar Index has pulled back from five-week highs, while gold has remained near the record highs reached early this week. Futures tied to the S&P 500 rose 0.3%, offering positive signals 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. 16: Uniswap deploys on OKX's X Layer.
• Macro
  • Jan. 16, 11 a.m. & 3:30 p.m.: Speeches from Fed Vice Chair Philip N. Jefferson and Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman on the Outlook for the Economy and Monetary Policy.
  • Jan. 18, 9 p.m.: China GDP growth rate YoY for Q4 est. 4.4%
• 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. 16: Arkham to host an X Spaces session with TRON DAO on stablecoins.
• Unlocks
  • Jan. 16: Arbitrum ARB$0.1192 to unlock 1.86% of its circulating supply worth $19.29 million.
  • Jan. 17: DeBridge DBR$0.01569 to unlock 14.81% of its circulating supply worth $11.1 million.
  • Jan. 18: Official Trump TRUMP$3.4071 to unlock 11.95% of its circulating supply worth $268.5 million.
  • Jan. 18: Ondo ONDO$0.2604 to unlock 57.23% of its circulating supply worth $785.96 million.
• Token Launches
  • Jan. 16: Fogo FOGO$0.02387 to be listed on Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, DigiFinex, Gate, KuCoin, and others.
  • Jan. 16: VeThor VTHO$0.0₃5947 to be listed on Kraken.
  • Jan. 16: Ultima ULTIMA$5,323.65 to be listed on KuCoin.

Conferences

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

• Day 1 of 2: Bitcoin Medellin 2026 (Colombia)

Market Movements

• BTC is down 0.24% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $95,325.54 (24hrs: -1.42%)
• ETH is unchanged at $3,298.10 (24hrs: -1.72%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1.31% at 2,983.98 (24hrs: -2.04%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 2.84%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0046% (4.2760% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is down 0.13% at 99.19
• Gold futures are down 0.41% at $4,604.80
• Silver futures are down 2.10% at $90.40
• Nikkei 225 closed down 0.32% at 53,936.17
• Hang Seng closed down 0.29% at 26,844.96
• FTSE is little changed at 10,247.63
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.26% at 6,025.63
• DJIA closed on Thursday up 0.60% at 49,442.44
• S&P 500 closed up 0.26% at 6,944.47
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.25% at 23,530.02
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.34% at 33,028.92
• S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged at 3.326,61
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 1.2 bps at 4.172%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.29% at 7,001.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.59% at 25,856.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.09% at 49,685.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.67% (unchanged)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03462 (-0.27%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,009 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $41.37
• Total fees: 3.25 BTC / $313,346
• CME Futures Open Interest: 118,630 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 20.7 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 6.38%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows bitcoin's daily price swings in candlestick format.
• The recovery rally has stalled at the 100-day simple moving average line. However, prices still remain above the former resistance-turned-support at $94,365.
• The bullish outlook would weaken if it drops back below.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $239.28 (–6.48%), +1.19% at $242.12 in pre-market
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $31.99 (+13.48%), +0.94% at $32.29
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $10.66 (–4.05%), +1.22% at $10.79
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $16.57 (–4.27%), +1.21% at $16.77
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $18.08 (+0.89%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $12.73 (–4.57%), +1.18% at $12.88
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $16.32 (–11.30%)
• CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI): closed at $47.98 (–1.96%)
• Circle Internet Group (CRCL): closed at $76.60 (–9.67%), +1.27% at $77.57
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $37.70 (–4.94%), +0.45% at $37.87

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $170.91 (–4.70%), +1.30% at $173.13
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $20.33 (–4.87%)
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $10.44 (–4.04%), +0.29% at $10.47
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.21 (–10.16%)
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.40 (–9.68%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $100.2 million
• Cumulative net flows: $58.2 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.31 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $164.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $12.93 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.17 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• With Military Action on Hold, the U.S. Puts New Sanctions on Iran (The Wall Street Journal): With a decision about military action on pause, the U.S. turned to economic pressure on Iran, rolling out a host of new sanctions on officials it said were responsible for the bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
• US and Taiwan reach trade deal, with semiconductor chips and China in focus (Reuters): The U.S. and Taiwan reached a trade agreement focused on semiconductors and technology supply chains, the U.S. Commerce Dept. said.
• More people are using Ethereum for the first time, data shows (CoinDesk): The rise in new wallets suggests broader interest in Ethereum, driven by decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoin transfers, NFTs and new applications. The jump over the past 30 days stands out relative to recent months, pointing to fresh participation.
• Interactive Brokers accepts USDC deposits; Ripple's RLUSD coming soon (CoinDesk): Eligible clients of Interactive Brokers can now deposit USDC to be converted to dollars and credited to brokerage accounts within minutes, with plans to support Ripple’s RLUSD and PayPal’s PYUSD next week.
• BitMine expects $400 million income on ether holdings, bet on MrBeast could '10x' (CoinDesk): BitMine Chair Tom Lee told investors the company could generate over $400 million income on its $13 billion worth of ether holdings, primarily via staking.