- Last week, cryptoassets recovered from oversold levels as the previous selling pressure from Bitcoin ETFs receded and corporations continued to adopt Bitcoin as treasury asset.
- Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.
- 74 publicly listed companies now hold BTC on their balance sheet with 21 companies holding more than 1,000 BTC. The amount of BTC held by public corporations has increased by +124.8% in 2024 and continues to increase in 2025 already.
Chart of the Week
Performance
Last week, cryptoassets recovered from oversold levels as the previous selling pressure from Bitcoin ETFs receded and corporations continued to adopt Bitcoin as treasury asset.
More specifically, US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a significant reversal in flows on Friday with around +908.1 mn USD in net inflows across all ETFs – the highest daily net inflows since early December. This is following a rather weak period during the Christmas holiday season where we saw mostly net outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs. US spot Ethereum ETFs also saw positive net inflows of around +58.9 mn USD on Friday.
Another major driver of the most recent recovery was the continued adoption of bitcoin as corporate treasury asset. Over the past week, 7 companies have announced to either start adopting a Bitcoin standard or extend their BTC holdings.
Most prominently, both Microstrategy (MSTR US) and Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA US) – the top 1 and 2 public companies holding BTC - extended their holdings at the beginning of the year. Microstrategy's CEO Michal Saylor has even hinted on another round of purchases on Twitter/X following a capital raise of an additional 2 bn USD perpetual preferred equity offering.
According to the latest data provided by bitcointreasuries.net, 74 publicly listed companies now hold BTC on their balance sheet with 21 companies holding more than 1,000 BTC. The amount of BTC held by public corporations has increased by +124.8% in 2024 and continues to increase in 2025 already (Chart-of-the-Week).
This development will likely continue to accelerate as corporations are incentivised by stellar stock performances of those corporations that did adopt a BTC standard, most prominently Metaplanet Inc. (3350 JP) which has been the single best performing stock in the world in 2024 as highlighted here.
As far as sovereign adoption of bitcoin is concerned, we also saw a bullish news flow that supported the recent recovery in crypto markets last week. For instance, speculation about the prospects of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve increased after Eric Trump met Michael Saylor at the beginning of the year. At the same time, former senior advisor to Trump Jared Kushner also started following Michael Saylor on Twitter/X yesterday.
This has led to a renewed increase of the probability that the Trump administration will create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in the first 100 days of his term. At the time of writing, Polymarket odds estimate this probability at around 28%. Trump will take office in exactly 2 weeks from now on the 20 th of January 2025.
In general, among the top 10 crypto assets, Sui, Cardano, and Dogecoin were the relative outperformers.
Overall altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin rebounded last week, with around 85% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum also outperformed Bitcoin significantly last week.
Sentiment
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.
At the moment, 6 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.
We saw significant reversals to the upside in BTC Put-Call Volume as well as BTC Exchange Inflows.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently signals an “Extreme Greed” level of sentiment as of this morning.
Performance dispersion among cryptoassets has continued to decline from its recent highs. This signals that altcoins have become more correlated with the performance of Bitcoin lately.
Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has also continued to be high last week, with around 85% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also continued to outperform Bitcoin last week.
In general, increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin outperformance continues to signal a very positive risk appetite at the moment.
Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) has remained relatively stable last week. The index still signals a neutral to slightly bullish cross asset risk appetite.
Fund Flows
Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have stabilised last week after some significant net outflows during the holiday period.
Global crypto ETPs saw around -61.7 mn USD in weekly net inflows across all types of cryptoassets.
Global Bitcoin ETPs that saw even slight net inflows totalling +2.0 mn USD last week, of which +245.0 mn USD in net inflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs alone.
The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US also saw decent net inflows, totalling +86.7 mn USD last week.
In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) saw somewhat higher net outflows equivalent to -52.2 mn USD, while the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) attracted some capital of around +0.4 mn USD.
Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) remained high, with around -167.3 mn USD in net outflows last week. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) also experienced net outflows of -139.5 mn USD last week. IBIT also experienced the highest daily net outflow since inception on Thursday last week with -332.6 mn USD in net outflows in a single day.
Meanwhile, flows into global Ethereum ETPs also showed signs of stabilising with around -98.9 mn USD in net outflows.
US Ethereum spot ETFs also recorded net outflows with around -38.2 mn USD on aggregate. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) also continued to experience net outflows with around -51.6 mn USD last week.
The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US also experienced elevated net outflows of around -56.1 USD in net inflows last week.
In Europe, the ETC Group Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) experienced positive net inflows of +1.2 mn USD while the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) also continued to attract capital with +1.9 mn USD in net inflows.
Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum attracted most of the capital last week with around +18.5 mn USD in global net inflows on aggregate. The ETC Group Physical Solana ETP (ESOL) experienced minor net outflows of -0.7 mn USD last week and our newly launched Bitwise Solana Staking ETP (BSOL) had sticky AuM (+/- 0 mn USD).
Investors also allocated capital to thematic & basket crypto ETPs with around +16.7 mn USD in global net inflows on aggregate last week. The ETC Group MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) also experienced net inflows of around +0.3 mn USD last week.
In contrast, global crypto hedge funds continued to decrease their market exposure to Bitcoin last week. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds' performance to Bitcoin declined to around 0.56 per yesterday's close.
On-Chain Data
In general, Bitcoin on-chain metrics have improved slightly compared to the previous week.
Selling pressure receded judging by the decline in net selling volumes on BTC spot exchanges that amounted to only -37.5 mn USD after -593.5 mn USD in net selling volumes the week before.
Although we still saw significant realized profits towards year-end on Monday last week, profit-taking by long-term bitcoin holders has gradually eased.
On a positive note, the overall supply deficit in Bitcoin is still ongoing as exchange balances continued to drift lower last week signalling an ongoing decline in available liquid supply on exchanges. Only 14.1% of total supply is held by exchange addresses.
Whales also continued to take bitcoins off exchanges on a net basis. More specifically, BTC whales have sent +11,348 BTC off exchanges last week, signalling increasing buying interest from whales. Whales are defined as network entities that control at least 1,000 BTC.
A positive signal in this context is also the fact that both whales and long-term holders have discontinued distributing bitcoins to a larger extent – their share of available supply has remained stable at around 38.2% and 66.3%, respectively.
Ongoing sovereign and corporate adoption of BTC could support these metrics over the coming months.
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Last week, BTC futures traders slightly reduced their exposure as open interest declined by around -17k BTC. BTC perpetual futures open interest declined by around -5k BTC.
Both long and short futures liquidations remained muted last week.
BTC perpetual funding rates continued to remain positive signalling ongoing bullish sentiment among BTC perpetual traders.
When the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions. A positive funding rate tends to be a sign of bullish sentiment in perpetual futures markets at the moment.
However, the BTC 3-months annualised basis declined somewhat to around 12.7% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges.
BTC option open interest increased slightly by around +9k BTC following the very significant options expiries the prior week. The put-call open interest ratio declined signalling significant call buying at the start of the year.
The 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC increased somewhat but still signals a higher relative appetite for call options and bullish sentiment. At the time of writing, the 1-month skew is still significantly more biased towards call options, with a premium of around 3.9% p.a. for delta-equivalent calls.
BTC option implied volatilities also remained relatively stable and moved sideways most of the time last week.
At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 57.1% p.a.
Bottom Line
- Last week, cryptoassets recovered from oversold levels as the previous selling pressure from Bitcoin ETFs receded and corporations continued to adopt Bitcoin as treasury asset.
- Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.
- 74 publicly listed companies now hold BTC on their balance sheet with 21 companies holding more than 1,000 BTC. The amount of BTC held by public corporations has increased by +124.8% in 2024 and continues to increase in 2025 already.
Appendix
Important Information
This publication constitutes a marketing communication and is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, a personal recommendation, or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument.
This document (which may take the form of a presentation, press release, social media post, blog article, broadcast communication or similar instrument – collectively referred to as a “Document”) is issued by Bitwise Europe GmbH (“BEU” or the “Issuer”) and has been prepared in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, including those relating to financial promotions.
Bitwise Europe GmbH, incorporated under the laws of Germany, is the issuer of the Exchange Traded Products (“ETPs”) referenced in this Document under a base prospectus and the applicable final terms, as supplemented from time to time, approved by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). The approval of the prospectus by BaFin relates solely to the completeness, coherence and comprehensibility of the prospectus in accordance with the Prospectus Regulation and does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation or assessment of the merits of the products.
The market analyses, views and scenarios presented reflect the assessment as of the date of publication and are based on information considered reliable. However, no representation or warranty is made as to their accuracy or completeness. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Capital at risk. Cryptoassets are highly volatile and involve a high degree of risk. The value of investments in cryptoassets and crypto-linked ETPs may fluctuate significantly, and investors may lose part or all of their invested capital. No capital protection or guaranteed compensation mechanism applies in respect of market losses.
Any investment decision should be made solely on the basis of the relevant base prospectus, the applicable final terms and the key information document, in particular the section entitled “Risk Warning”. The base prospectus, final terms and additional risk information are available at: www.bitwiseinvestments.eu
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