Trading Moment: Are Bitcoin's "Rally Top" Signals Emerging? $98,000 at Risk as Battle for the Key $100,000 Level looms.

Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

1. Market Observation

Recently, spot silver prices surged to a record high of over $93 per ounce, causing its share of costs in solar panels to jump from 3.4% in 2023 to 29%, forcing manufacturers to raise prices and seek alternative materials. However, silver prices retreated from their highs after the Trump administration decided not to impose comprehensive tariffs on key minerals, including silver. Meanwhile, the demand outlook for copper, another key industrial metal, underwent a reassessment. Chip giant Nvidia quietly corrected a major error in a technical report, revising the copper requirement for a gigawatt-scale data center from an exaggerated 500,000 tons to 200 tons, significantly easing previous aggressive market expectations that AI development would lead to a severe copper supply shortage. This correction aligns with the views of institutions like Goldman Sachs, which pointed out that the copper market has entered a period of oversupply and predicted that prices could fall back to $11,000 per ton by the end of the year. Despite the adjustment in resource consumption expectations, the strong momentum of the AI sector remains unabated. Chipmaker TSMC released better-than-expected financial results and significantly raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $52-56 billion.

Bitcoin rebounded to a two-month high of $97,500 at the start of the new year, approaching $98,000, and is currently consolidating around $96,000. Several analysts have offered differing opinions: Analyst Murphy believes that his proprietary indicator, the "Bitcoin Risk Signal," has dropped from 100 to 0, indicating a "top of the rally" rather than the "start of a bull market." Glassnode points out that whether the market can hold above the $98,300 cost basis for short-term holders is key to a trend reversal; although selling pressure from long-term holders has eased, buying power in the spot market has not yet accumulated sustainably. Michaël van de Poppe is relatively optimistic, believing that even a pullback to $93,000 is nothing to worry about and predicts a break above the $100,000 mark in February. Trader Ted observed massive sell orders worth $232 million in the $97,000 to $100,000 range. CryptoQuant data shows that short-term holders took profits during the price rebound, while whale addresses added 46,000 Bitcoins this week. Overall, the market consensus is that while institutional funds flowing into spot ETFs is a positive sign, retail investor interest is weak, and Bitcoin needs to break through $98,000 with sustained spot demand to steadily move toward $100,000.

Ethereum's price consolidated after hitting $3,400, with analysts holding differing opinions on its future direction. Analyst Lennarert Snyder proposed three trading strategies: focusing on long opportunities after liquidity is available below $3,270, or adding to long positions after a break above $3,450, targeting $3,600. Man of Bitcoin believes that as long as Ethereum holds the key support level of $3,191, it has the potential to reach new highs. However, Glassnode analyst Sean Rose points out that although Ethereum's price performance is outperforming Bitcoin, its realized profit/loss ratio (SOPR) remains below 1, indicating relatively weak holder confidence. CryptoQuant analyst Pelin Ay analyzes the situation from a leverage perspective, arguing that the current high leverage ratio of nearly 0.60 historically often foreshadows a 10% to 25% price increase after a brief shakeout, potentially pushing Ethereum towards $4,100. Meanwhile, Hyblock data shows significant long liquidation in the $3,040 to $3,100 range, increasing the likelihood of a short-term price pullback to this area.

Following Twitter's (formerly X platform) update to its developer policy to combat AI spam, banning rewarded posting apps like "InfoFi," Kaito announced the discontinuation of its "Yaps" incentive model and its transition to the "Kaito Studio" platform for professional creators. This news triggered a drop of over 20% in the KAITO token price. On-chain data also showed large transfers from team-related addresses to exchanges in the seven days prior to the announcement, raising suspicions of pre-emptive selling. Furthermore, after Binance Alpha was listed on "Snowball" yesterday, its market capitalization peaked at nearly $90 million, and Meme tokens with a dividend model saw a significant price increase. (*Note: This content is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Please conduct your own research.)

2. Key Data (as of 13:00 HKT on January 16)

(Data source: CoinAnk, Upbit, SoSoValue, CoinMarketCap)

Bitcoin: $95,627.2 (year-to-date +9.1%), daily spot trading volume $55 billion.
Ethereum: $3,310.38 (year-to-date +11.1%), daily spot trading volume $26.6 billion.
Fear of Greed Index: 49 (Neutral)
Average GAS: BTC: 1.75 sat/vB, ETH: 0.02 Gwei
Market share: BTC 59.1%, ETH 12.4%
Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: XRP, BTC, ETH, BARD, IP
24-hour BTC long/short ratio: 50.39% / 49.61%
Sector Performance: The crypto sector fell for the second consecutive day, with the DePIN sector leading the decline, falling by over 4%.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 96,842 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $229 million. Of these, $60.86 million was liquidated in BTC, $39.36 million in ETH, and $6.78 million in DASH.

3. ETF Flows (as of January 15)

Bitcoin ETF: +$100 million, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.
Ethereum ETF: +$164 million, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.
XRP ETF: +17.06 million USD
SOL ETF: +8.94 million USD

4. Today's Outlook

Binance Alpha will list RollX (ROLL) on January 16th.
Binance will stop supporting deposits and withdrawals of certain network tokens on January 16.
Arbitrum (ARB) will unlock approximately 92.65 million tokens at 9 PM Beijing time on January 16th, representing 1.86% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $19.2 million.
deBridge (DBR) will unlock approximately 618 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on January 17th, representing 14.81% of the circulating supply, worth approximately $11.6 million.
ZKsync (ZK) will unlock approximately 173 million tokens at 4 PM Beijing time on January 17th, representing 3.16% of the circulating supply, worth approximately $5.9 million.

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: River up 68%, Dash up 12%, Chiliz up 8.9%, Pump.fun up 7.2%, and MemeCore up 5.8%.