The plateau of crypto

Market picture

The cryptocurrency market rose 3.5% in the last 24 hours, recovering to $3.63 trillion, having peaked in the last five days. The market’s rapid recovery is indicative of continued interest in risk assets. Despite the day’s rise in altcoins, they remain well below their recent highs, accentuating the performance of Bitcoin, which is close to its all-time highs.

The Cryptocurrency Market Sentiment Index increased by 8 to 84 (extreme greed), the highest in the last five weeks. In mid-December, a similar level of sentiment led to a five-day sell-off.

Bitcoin traded near the $105K mark. It was quickly bought back on Tuesday when it fell to $101K, but when it reached the $107K level early Wednesday afternoon, the market shifted to sellers. Clearly, optimism is high in the market, but an additional factor is needed for new momentum.

News background

The Block recorded an increase in the number of enquiries on the topic of Bitcoin, interpreting this as a leading indicator of stronger retail investment inflows. The number of mentions of Bitcoin in X last week doubled from the previous week to 495 thousand. On Google Trends, the number of ‘how to buy cryptocurrency’ queries reached an all-time high.

Dogecoin showed significant growth after the US government’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) published the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency logo on its official website.

Last week, MicroStrategy acquired an additional 11,000 BTC through the sale of ~$1.1bn worth of shares at an average price of around $101,191 per coin. The company holds 461,000 BTC on its balance sheet, acquired for a combined $29.3bn at an average price of $63,610.

On 21 January, Telegram and the TON Foundation announced an exclusive agreement requiring embedded Web3 applications to use the TON network exclusively. Existing wallet protocols for third-party networks will be prohibited, except for applications with cross-chain functionality.