So, the crypto market starts the week off like a kid on Christmas morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but wait! What’s this? A reality check! Gains? Nah, they’re like that last slice of pizza nobody wants. Ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) have risen over 3% since midnight UTC, while BTC is up nearly 2%. XRP? Oh, poor XRP, lagging behind at 1.5%, like the kid who forgot to do his homework.
On Monday, the crypto stage lit up with bitcoin rising 2.1% and ether 3.1%. Altcoins, ever the show-offs, flaunted gains of over 6%, with chiliz and optimism stealing the spotlight. Yet, the audience of investors remained uneasy, for Iran’s conflict grinds on, now in its fifth act. Pakistan offers peace talks, but the markets scoff-Brent crude leaps to $108, a cynical bow to skepticism.
In a rather riveting interview with John Gillen on the Milk Road (a name that conjures up visions of pastoral bliss), Kendrick gracefully links his Ethereum aspirations to the rather staid approach of traditional finance to blockchain infrastructure. It’s not merely the passionate love affair of Ethereum’s narrative momentum that leads him to such conclusions. No, it’s the reassuring notion that banks, asset managers, and other grand institutions might just find Ethereum to be their safe haven. How utterly romantic!
Apparently, there’s some “steady accumulation” happening. Big whoop. Institutional activity is as cautious as a guy deciding whether to order the soup or the salad. Consolidation, low volatility-sounds like a buildup phase, or maybe just a really long nap. Momentum’s picking up? Sure, Jan. XRP’s at a “key turning point,” they say. Or maybe it’s just spinning its wheels. Who knows? Not me. I’m too busy wondering why I ordered the soup.
What we’re witnessing here is not your garden-variety consolidation; oh no! This is a setup so precarious that one might imagine a dramatic scene from a Victorian melodrama. So, dear audience, is our dear Bitcoin poised on the edge of a breakdown or will it muster the strength to hold its ground amidst this swirling chaos?
Behold, the NVT Ratio, a creation of the enigmatic Willy Woo, who in 2017 bestowed upon us this cryptographic oracle. It compares Bitcoin’s market capitalization to the USD volume of transactions, a crude yet effective mirror reflecting whether the price is a masque of speculation or a portrait of utility. At 41.7, it suggests the network’s activity is neither frothing with delirium nor languishing in neglect-a Goldilocks of sorts, though one suspects Goldilocks would find this porridge rather bland.
Steve Inskeep, Simon’s ever-watchful colleague, took it upon himself to deliver a clarion call to their followers, declaring, perhaps rather ironically, that Simon is not in league with the dark forces of digital assets. One wonders if Inskeep should also mention that Simon doesn’t sell moon rocks or bottled air from the Himalayas.
These moves are like a blind date between old money and new tech. The global repo market? Still the life of the liquidity party, but now with more blockchain glitter.
Currently, Bitcoin is trading around $67,600, up slightly by 1.37% today. However, it’s still below the $70,000 mark, which it has struggled to surpass in recent months. Trading activity is up 34% to $27.14 billion as the U.S. stock market prepares to open for the week.
Digital asset treasuries (DATs), those stubborn mules of the crypto world, had a year in 2025 that would make even the most hardened farmer shake his head. Strategy, one such DAT, clung to life like a weed in a drought, its share prices trading at a discount to the value of its crypto holdings. But, like a phoenix from the ashes, it’s now trading near or above its worth, proving that even in the wild west of finance, there’s hope for the underdog.