U.S. stocks opened and closed normally last night, and generally rose. The ETF data for BTC and Ethereum also came out today, and they all showed normal inflows. So under this circumstance, we are still looking forward to the weekend market. Basically, we can see a signal of a rebound and rise. You can see that the current market is still range-bound. Once there is a decline, the market will recover quickly. This proves that funds in the United States have begun to recover slowly.
In the absence of any major negative factors, the market will rebound in the upward range, because the negative factors about the number of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in 2025 have been almost digested. Although this week is the last Sunday of 2024, and $4.2 billion of options expire, it is highly likely that investors will choose to postpone rather than sell immediately, so this wave of delivery will not have much impact on the market.
Then let me show you the data: BTC net inflow is $475 million, Ethereum net inflow is $117 million. Ethereum has almost bought back the outflow data from two days before Christmas in just one day. However, Bitcoin still has some catching up to do. From this, we can see that institutions are slowly becoming interested in Ethereum. Although the price of Ethereum is still far from its historical high, the trend has already shown that institutions and investors are more optimistic about it. If Ethereum can maintain this inflow, I believe the price of Ethereum will rise, and the long-awaited altcoin season will soon follow Ethereum's momentum!
Bitcoin is still moving in a rather entangled manner, mainly because the fluctuations of the three major U.S. stock indices last night were Dow Jones +0.07%, S&P +0.04%, NASDAQ +0.05%. This is basically an order of magnitude smaller than usual. Bitcoin's volatility was also quite small after the U.S. stock market opened, with fluctuations peaking at 96,600 and dropping to just above 95,000, with a maximum amplitude of only around $1000. Bitcoin's movements are consistent with the U.S. stock market. After all, at the end of the year, institutions and listed companies, whether cashing out for the holidays or balancing their books, all have some impact on Bitcoin, but do not significantly affect the trend. Besides the monotonous upward trend in 2020, other years have seen fluctuating markets. Real breakthroughs tend to appear in January of the following year. So there's no need to overly focus on Bitcoin's performance these days; the January market will surely be good, especially since Trump is set to take office on January 20.
Besides platform tokens, the rest of the altcoins are generally performing quite mediocre. Especially BGB and Gate's GT have already achieved historical highs. Previously, after BNB and HTX reached new highs, a new altcoin market began. The early performance of platform tokens, in a sense, also represents the initial performance of the altcoin cycle. Now we are seeing the performance of second-tier platform tokens; does this imply that it will be even crazier than the previous cycle?
Ethereum will ultimately lead altcoins out of their predicament and usher in a glorious moment for altcoins!
As an indicator of altcoins, Ethereum also includes many altcoin ecosystems revolving around it. Its ecosystem has already established a foothold in the market and is operational, including the prosperous on-chain ecosystems!
Although there are many potentially promising altcoins in the market that sometimes temporarily outshine Ethereum, in the long run, the second-in-command position in the crypto space is still most securely held by Ethereum.
The most representative among these is SOL, Sui, AVAX, and other public chains in the same sector. Their recent performance has been quite limited, but these ecosystems ultimately belong to their own chains, while Ethereum has already crossed many ecosystems.
Now with the ETF funding entry, Ethereum becomes more worthwhile for long-term holding. For recent whales, including institutions and listed companies, many whales have been frequently making waves around the $3500 position, and some institutions are even raising their costs to stockpile Ethereum in large quantities. Perhaps this is signaling to us retail investors that once certain conditions and trigger points arise, it may be too late to board the Ethereum train.
2025 will be a time for Ethereum to shine. Currently, ETF spot staking is not yet allowed, and ETFs cannot be staked, including Grayscale's Ethereum, which also cannot be staked. This explains one of the reasons why the inflow of BTC's ETF has always been much higher than that of Ethereum.
Once Trump takes office and changes policies, it is highly likely that staking will be allowed. After all, the largest holding in Trump's portfolio, aside from some altcoins, is Ethereum. Once staking is launched, not only will there be an increase in annualized rates, but there will also be dividends to earn interest. This area will attract many whales and institutions holding large amounts of Ethereum, and the subsequent developments will not exclude listed companies.
So, when staking is launched, the most affected area in the Ethereum ecosystem will still be the staking sector. Currently, the standout altcoins in the staking sector, LDO and SSV, are good choices. I believe that once the staking feature is launched, the dividends that can be earned will also include those from secondary altcoins!
Since the market started in March-April, Ethereum has been despised by retail investors. But have you noticed that Ethereum's decline has led to altcoins being suppressed for nearly eight months, causing everyone to suffer from the bloodsucking and selling pressure brought by VC tokens? Then in November, when Ethereum returned to its high for the year and broke through $4000, most altcoins followed suit and have already seen increases of 2-3 times.
So without the increase in Ethereum, altcoins will struggle to find their moment. The ETF staking feature for Ethereum is coming soon, and the upgrade for Ethereum is also approaching, so the altcoin season that everyone is looking forward to is also coming soon!
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