CMC Market Pulse delivers actionable market insights, giving you all the key narratives and developments you need in under 5 minutes.
Market Overview 📉
This week saw Bitcoin (BTC) continue to chop sideways as the majority of market participants take the holiday season off following Christmas and leading into the new year. Most coins followed the same pattern too with a handful of exceptions. The total crypto market cap dropped this week, with a decrease of almost 4% to $3.463T this week from $3.602T the week before.
Bitcoin (BTC) rose 1.30% across the week, while Ethereum (ETH) fared slightly better, with a gain of 3.49% from the previous week.
Daily liquidations this week stayed relatively low with the limited trading activity going on. The largest liquidations occurred on 30th December, with a total liquidation of ~$270M across both longs and shorts. Short liquidations remain largely muted as well, with an average of under $100M liquidated per day. Funding rates across the board still largely remain flat, with small increases on selected altcoins, possibly signalling a slow buildup of interest as traders return to the markets in the new year.
📌 USDT issuer, Tether, acquires 7,629 BTC worth ~$700M, bringing their total BTC holdings to approximately $7.7B - Link
📌 Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, purchases another 2,138 BTC for ~$209M at an average price of $97,837. - Link
📌 Syria looks to legalize Bitcoin, in a radical bid to rebuild the economy after the collapse of the Assad Regime. - Link
Why does it matter?
The sideways trade from the prior week continues into this week. While there are certain deviations upwards and downwards, majors usually revert back to the mean, resulting in a largely unexciting trading week for most. As the New Year holiday ends, the market begins to see some new life, with Bitcoin pushing for higher in the 97K levels and altcoins following suit. Traditional markets fared poorly as well, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both down 2.48% and 3.42% respectively, possibly selling off to book profits for the end of the year.
Bitcoin dominance continues to form a lower high and lower low this week after a failed breakout in mid December, ending the week at 57.66%. This trend has sparked speculation of an incoming alt season, especially with Q1 seasonality favoring altcoins as well. Notable outperformers among altcoins largely centered around AI-related tokens, including ai16z, Zerebro, Freysa AI, Griffain and AI Rig Complex (ARC). Other outperformers include traditional memecoins from the famous Murad list, SPX6900 (SPX) and Gigachad (GIGA).
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Narrative of the Week 📰
AI tokens are back in the spotlight, with AI infra making the big moves this week.
📌 Zerebro developer, Jeffy Yu, announces Zentients, Zerebro’s consumer facing launchpad for AI agents, which will use the ZEREBRO token to create and provide liquidity for new AI agent tokens, similar to the Virtual launchpad. - Link
📌 AI platform, ai16z, considers the launch of its own L1 chain, as part of a tokenomics overhaul. The move would drive an increased adoption of ai16z’s ELIZA framework, while accruing value back to the token. - Link
📌 Longtime Bitcoin advocate, Udi Wertheimer, gifts the aixbt agent a Quantum Cats Ordinal, then changes to its new profile picture, becoming the first AI agent to utilize an Ordinals profile picture. - Link
Why does it matter?
The AI narrative has exploded after the introduction of AI agents in October, with the Terminal of Truths kicking off the craze. Since then, as hundreds of new agents popped up and the novelty started to wear off, the focus gradually shifted to the infrastructure powering these agents and investing in the launchpads that made these agents possible, as well as other supporting infrastructure such as those which facilitated communication between agents. While some are ready to call tops on this sector, many are quick to highlight how small it is relative to the total crypto market cap.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 Popular EVM wallet, MetaMask, introduces the MetaMask Gas Station, which will allow users to swap on Ethereum Mainnet without ETH for gas for supported tokens. - Link
📌 Hyperliquid staking goes live, enabling users to stake HYPE tokens across 16 validators, 5 of which are run by the Hyperliquid Foundation. - Link
📌 Bridging protocol, Synapse Protocol, introduces CX, the native token for Cortex Protocol, an AI Agent platform that is part of Synapse’s ecosystem. The CX token is currently non-tradable, and 73.5% of its total supply is allocated to SYN token stakers. - Link
📌 Decentralized cloud compute platform, Aethir, launches Aethir Edge, a physical device allowing users to share high-performance computing power while rewarding them for it. - Link
📌 High-performance L2, Fuel Network, releases the Fuel Agent Kit, a framework to quickly build AI agents to execute tasks autonomously on the Fuel Network. - Link
Why does it matter?
The concept of gas fees have always been a major user experience hurdle for new users to the blockchain, who are used to free actions or better hidden fees in the Web2 world. Moreover, having to hold a (usually) volatile token to pay for gas, usually doesn’t sit well with new users. With MetaMask — the most used EVM wallet — slowly rolling out gasless transactions for their wallet, this bodes well for the onboarding of new users and is a step in the right direction for improving the on-chain user experience for mass adoption.
DeFi Brief 🏦
📌 USD0 stablecoin issuer, Usual Money, announces that they will turn on the fee switch on 7 January. - Link
📌 Telegram-backed L1, TON, partners with Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter, to incubate a new liquidity aggregator on the TON blockchain. The winner will be announced on 15 February. - Link
📌 Weighted AMM protocol, Balancer, introduces their WETH-wstETH Boosted Pool, which leverages Lido Finance, Aave, and Balancer’s Boosted Pools to create a high-yielding pool with full exposure to ETH. - Link
📌 Frax Finance puts up a governance proposal to enable Superstate’s Short Duration US Government Securities Fund, USTB, as a collateral and custodian asset for frxUSD to create institution-grade fiat on/off ramps for the frxUSD stablecoin. - Link
📌 Upcoming EVM L1, Berachain, launches stablecoin pre-deposits for Boyco in partnership with Ethena Labs and Concrete. All funds received will be used to support Berachain-native apps on mainnet launch. - Link
📌 ZKSync DEX, SyncSwap, announces SyncSwap V3, which brings to the platform Range Pools, which enable users to set custom price ranges for liquidity provision for improved capital efficiency, similar to the concentrated liquidity model. - Link
Why does it matter?
With the victory of Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in the 2024 US Presidential Elections, the crypto industry has been anticipating relaxed regulations for protocols, especially so with DeFi protocols which have long been targeted for violating securities laws. With a pro-crypto administration incoming, several DeFi protocols have taken bold steps forward, including Usual Money’s recent move to turn on the fee switch, a move which many older protocols are hesitant to proceed with due to fear of being classified as a security.
Meme Coins 🚀
📌 Siqi Chen, the man whose daughter gave rise to the MIRA token, launched a new token ZERO, with the description to not buy the token. However, as the token price rose, he panicked and sold 40% of the token supply, resulting in the chart dumping and many buyers losing money on it. Although he claims he was “still learning how it all worked”, other internet sleuths have dug out past tweets of his participation in 2021’s NFT craze and six-figure airdrops he claimed in 2020, implying he could be more experienced than he lets on. - Link
Fundraises 💰
📌 Binance Labs invests into DEX and liquidity protocol, Thena, on the Binance Smart Chain, for an undisclosed amount. - Link
📌 AI training and development platform, Nodepay, raises in a new funding round led by IDG Capital and Mythos Venture Partners, with support from Sypher Capital, IBC Group and more. - Link
📌 Decentralized GPU network, Inferix, raises 2.6M from DePIN X under their SuperNode Program. DePIN X is backed by HashKey Capital, FBG Capital, and more. - Link
📌 Trustless lending and borrowing platform, Accountable, raises $2.3M in funding, led by MitonC and Zee Prime Capital, with support from CMCC Global, Aquanow, and more. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter Exchange, shares the first draft for the upcoming Jupuary airdrop in January 2025, which will distribute 700M JUP tokens to users and stakers. - Link
📌 Perpetual DEX, Drift Protocol, announces that they will be releasing the second DRIFT airdrop in May 2025. - Link
📌 Solana restaking project, Solayer, announces their upcoming airdrop, which will be the first of three distributions. Users will have to accept the terms on the Solayer dashboard at a later date to be eligible for the airdrop. - Link
📌 Slinky airdrops 10% of their total supply to 27.7M wallets on Solana based on their snapshot on 30 August. Slinky uses ZK compression to enable low-cost mass token distribution. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @c0xswain
New year, new liquidity.
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