US Leads Bitcoin Holdings as Crypto Sentiment Stays Neutral After Historic Executive Order

André Dragosch, PhD Director, Head of Research — Europe

Ayush Tripathi Research Analyst

Contenuto

Chart of the Week
Performance
Sentiment
Fund Flows
On-Chain
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Bottom Line
Appendix

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Last week, cryptoassets generally performed in line with traditional asset classes last week despite the historic signing of the crypto-related executive order by President Trump.
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.
National Digital Asset Stockpile: US government controls around 20.3 bn USD across 8 different chains of which Bitcoin (BTC) represents around 98% of holdings – the US still the biggest sovereign holder of Bitcoin (BTC) worldwide with approximately 198k BTC in holdings.

Chart of the Week

Performance

Last week, cryptoassets generally performed in line with traditional asset classes last week despite the historic signing of the crypto-related executive order by President Trump.

The executive order includes the following key points:

The Executive Order creates the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to bolster U.S. leadership in digital finance.
The group will develop a federal regulatory framework for digital assets, including stablecoins, and consider creating a national digital assets stockpile.
The White House AI & Crypto Czar, David Sacks, will chair the group, which includes the Treasury Secretary, SEC Chairman, and other key officials.
The AI & Crypto Czar will collaborate with top experts in digital assets and markets to ensure external insights inform the group's work.
Departments and agencies are tasked with identifying regulations and actions related to digital assets that should be modified or revoked, submitting recommendations to the Working Group.
The order bans agencies from taking any steps to establish, issue, or promote central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
It also rescinds the previous Administration's Digital Assets Executive Order and the Treasury's framework on international digital asset engagement, which hindered innovation and U.S. global leadership in digital finance.

The creation of the national digital asset stockpile was seen as a positive signal towards ultimately establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

At the time of writing, the US government controls around 20.3 bn USD across 8 different chains of which Bitcoin (BTC) represents around 98% of holdings according to the latest data provided by Arkham Intelligence.

The US government is still the biggest sovereign holder of Bitcoin (BTC) worldwide with approximately 198k BTC in holdings (Chart-of-the-Week).

It is worth noting though that, although the executive order does not entail immediate new purchases of cryptoassets by the US government, it takes potential sales of the existing stockpile off the market, which is positive.

According to the latest estimates by Polymarket, traders estimate the odds that the US government will ultimately create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in 2025 at 54%.

Moreover, in a groundbreaking move, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially repealed Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 121, a contentious regulation that had previously restricted banks from providing bitcoin and crypto custody services.

Announced on Thursday, this decision marks a notable change in the SEC's stance on bitcoin and crypto regulation, opening the door to increased financial integration.

In another major news, Michael Saylor once again indicated on Twitter/X that Microstrategy might have increased its BTC holdings once again. It is quite likely that Microstrategy's BTC holdings have already surpassed 50 billion USD for the first time ever after the latest purchases.

Apart from these developments, we have seen a continuously high net inflows into global crypto ETPs last week which have also supported the recent rally in prices (more details in the Fund Flows section below).

However, the recent Deepseek AI saga could cause some short-term volatility in US equities and possibly also cryptoassets. Indices like the S&P 500 have seen increasing concentration in fewer mega caps like Nvidia which have been major performance drivers for the whole market in recent months. In general, some of the Mag7 stocks appear vulnerable due to relatively high valuations.

The issue is that correlations between major cryptoassets like Bitcoin or Ethereum to US equities remain relatively high – above 0.5 over the past 3 months – so any downside in traditional equities could propagate to cryptoasset markets as well.

However, this could potentially create interesting tactical entry points for those investors looking to increase their exposure in 2025.

The market will also have a strong focus on the upcoming FOMC meeting which is scheduled for the 28 ^th and 29 ^th of January. At the time of writing, Fed Funds Futures expect the Fed to leave its Target Rate unchanged at 4.50%.

In general, among the top 10 crypto assets, TRON, Chainlink, and XRP were the relative outperformers.

Nonetheless, altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin continued to be relatively low last week, with around 30% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also slightly underperformed Bitcoin last week.

Sentiment

Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.

At the moment, 7 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.

We are currently observing significant increases in the BTC Perpetual Funding Rate as well BTC Exchange Inflows.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently signals a “Greed” level of sentiment as of this morning.

Performance dispersion among cryptoassets has declined to very low levels. This signals that altcoins have continued to be increasingly correlated with the performance of Bitcoin lately.

Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has also remained low last week, with around 30% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also slightly underperformed 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 underperformance still signals bearish risk appetite at the moment.

Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) remained relatively high last week. The index still signals a bullish cross asset risk appetite as of yesterday.

Fund Flows

Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have continued to be very positive last week.

Global crypto ETPs saw around +2,221.0 mn USD in weekly net inflows across all types of cryptoassets, after +2,281.5 mn USD in net inflows the previous week.

Global Bitcoin ETPs flows have also accelerated significantly with net inflows totalling +1,871.7 mn USD last week, of which +1,757.5 mn USD in net inflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs alone, despite the fact that US markets were closed on the 20 ^th of January due to Trump's inauguration.

The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US experienced minor net outflows, totalling -18.5 mn USD last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) also experienced minor net outflows equivalent to -15.3 mn USD, while the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) managed to attract capital of around +1.4 mn USD.

Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) continued unabated, with around -97.9 mn USD in net outflows last week. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw around +1,316.5 mn USD in net inflows last week.

Meanwhile, flows into global Ethereum ETPs also continued to be high, with around +214.5 mn USD in net inflows after +215.2 mn USD in net inflows the week before.

US Ethereum spot ETFs also recorded net inflows with around +139.3 mn USD on aggregate. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) continued to experience net outflows with around -44.2 mn USD last week.

The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US experienced some net inflows of around +6.1 USD in net inflows last week.

In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) experienced minor net outflows of -0.2 mn USD while the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) experienced some net outflows of around -0.4 mn USD.

Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum continued to attract capital last week, with around +67.4 mn USD in global net inflows on aggregate. The Bitwise Physical Solana ETP (ESOL) saw minor net outflows (-0.6 mn USD) while the Bitwise Solana Staking ETP (BSOL) did not experience any creations or redemptions last week (+/- 0 mn USD).

Furthermore, thematic & basket crypto ETPs experienced increasing net inflows of around +67.3 mn USD on aggregate last week. The Bitwise MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) also saw positive net inflows last week (+1.3 mn USD).

Global crypto hedge funds have increased their market exposure to Bitcoin last week. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds' performance to Bitcoin increased to around 0.62 per yesterday's close, up from 0.55 the week before.

On-Chain Data

In general, Bitcoin's on-chain developments have become less of a tailwind more recently.

Selling pressure remained relatively high, with around -1.05 bn USD in net selling volumes on BTC spot exchanges.

On a positive note, exchange balances continued to drift lower last week, indicating a continuous drop in the amount of liquid supply available on exchanges, indicating that the overall supply deficit in Bitcoin is still intensifying.

At the time of writing, only 2.747 million BTC remain on exchanges, according to data provided by Glassnode.

That being said, whales started to distribute bitcoins on exchanges on a net basis. More specifically, BTC whales sent +6,551 BTC to exchanges, indicating an increase in whale selling pressure. Network entities that possess at least 1,000 Bitcoin are referred to as whales.

We are currently observing an interesting development in ETH/BTC relative on-chain developments: Relative transaction count between ETH L1 and BTC L1 has increased to the highest level since March 2024, signalling improving on-chain fundamentals for ETH despite the continued underperformance more recently.

Futures, Options & Perpetuals

Last week, BTC futures open interest increased slightly as traders positioned ahead of the presidential inauguration.

Meanwhile, both BTC futures long and short liquidations remained relatively moderate last week.

Nonetheless, BTC perpetual funding rates soared to the highest level since early November in early Monday morning trading and again over the weekend, which implies that perpetual traders have significantly increased their long positioning.

In general, when the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions, which is indicative of bullish (bearish) sentiment.

The BTC 3-months annualised basis decreased slightly to around 12.1% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges.

Meanwhile, BTC option open interest also continued to increase by around +13k BTC last week. The put-call open interest ratio increased significantly, signalling increased put buying last week.

This was also somewhat reflected in the 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC which also increased and signals an increase in bearish sentiment.

BTC option implied volatilities decreased significantly after the inauguration as option traders unwound some of their previous hedges/bets.

At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 54.9% p.a.

Bottom Line

Last week, cryptoassets generally performed in line with traditional asset classes last week, despite the historic signing of the crypto-related executive order by President Trump.
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” currently signals a neutral sentiment.
National Digital Asset Stockpile: US government controls around 20.3 bn USD across 8 different chains of which Bitcoin (BTC) represents around 98% of holdings – the US still the biggest sovereign holder of Bitcoin (BTC) worldwide with approximately 198k BTC in holdings.

Appendix

AVVISO IMPORTANTE:

Questo articolo non costituisce consulenza finanziaria, né rappresenta un'offerta o un invito all'acquisto di prodotti finanziari. Questo articolo è solo a scopo informativo generale, e non vi è alcuna assicurazione o garanzia esplicita o implicita sulla correttezza, accuratezza, completezza o correttezza di questo articolo o delle opinioni in esso contenute. Si consiglia di non fare affidamento sulla correttezza, accuratezza, completezza o correttezza di questo articolo o delle opinioni in esso contenute. Si prega di notare che questo articolo non costituisce né consulenza finanziaria né un'offerta o un invito all'acquisizione di prodotti finanziari o criptovalute.

PRIMA DI INVESTIRE IN CRYPTO ETP, GLI INVESTITORI POTENZIALI DOVREBBERO CONSIDERARE QUANTO SEGUE:

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