TL;DR

• BTC experienced a surge and pullback this week, reaching a high of $109,702.50.
• ETH price continued to trade in a range, showing weak performance compared to BTC.
• Trump’s inaugural speech did not mention cryptocurrencies, leading to continued market volatility.
• Trump’s pardon of Silk Road founder Ross sparked discussions in the crypto community.
• Cuba’s official X (formerly Twitter) account was hacked and used to promote related tokens.
• RWA protocol TVL grew over 200% year-over-year to $7.3 billion.
• OP will unlock tokens worth approximately $52.97 million on January 31, representing 2.32% of total supply.

Market Analysis

Review and Insights

• BTC Market — This week, BTC price showed a surge followed by a pullback, reaching a high of $109,702.5. However, after testing the key support level at $99,500, strong buying pressure from market bulls drove a price rebound. Currently, the price is showing an upward trend, with resistance remaining near $110,000, and a breakthrough could lead to further increases. Recent trading volume has increased compared to last week, indicating enhanced market activity. [1]

• ETH Market — This week, ETH continued to trade sideways, showing weak performance compared to BTC. ETH tested the $3,100 support level twice, demonstrating effective support strength. However, resistance around $3,500 remains significant, with bulls unable to break through this zone, leading to subdued market confidence. A future breakthrough and stabilization above $3,500 would establish a foundation for further upward movement. [2]

• Altcoins — Over the past 7 days, altcoins’ total market cap hit a low on January 20, with overall market performance weakening. PolitiFi, RWA, and Solana Meme sectors showed relatively strong gains, with many related tokens showing significant increases and some currencies achieving extremely high returns. [3]
• Options Market — The crypto options market’s open interest has risen to $46.53 billion, an 11.55% increase from last week’s $41.71 billion. The notional value for January 31 options has grown to $7.286 billion. With major settlements approaching next week, investors should maintain a cautious trading approach. [4]
• Macro Data — On January 22 evening, the US released December Conference Board Leading Indicators monthly rate at -0.1%, below market expectations of 0% and November’s 0.4%. The following evening, API crude oil inventory data for the week ending January 17 showed 958,000 barrels, compared to the previous -2.60 million barrels. The data indicates overall oil market supply exceeds demand, beneficial for financial market recovery. [5]
• Stablecoins — Over the past 7 days, the total stablecoin market cap increased by 3.01% to $212.9 billion. [6]
• Gas Fee — Ethereum’s average gas fee over the past 7 days has risen to 18.42 Gwei, up nearly 300% from last week, indicating increased network activity.[7]

Trending Concepts

Bitcoin’s price moved between $99,600 and $109,700 this week, while altcoin sectors showed mixed results. CoinGecko data revealed three leading sectors: PolitiFi surged 818%, RWA gained 90%, and Solana Meme rose 28% over the seven-day period [8].

PolitiFi — PolitiFi is an emerging sector that combines political elements with cryptocurrency. These tokens typically express political satire in meme form, with their value closely tied to real-world political events and figures. Compared to traditional meme coins, PolitiFi is more like a political version of fan tokens, with clear real-world connections, offering not just investment opportunities but also creating a unique form of political participation. These tokens often gain significant attention when the market lacks major narratives. As of January 23, 00:00 (UTC+0), influenced by Trump’s inauguration, the sector has risen over 818% in 7 days.

Key tokens in the sector include: TRUMP (up 457% over 7 days) and SBR (up 1.5% over 7 days). [9]

RWA — RWA (Real World Assets) is an innovative sector that tokenizes real-world assets through blockchain technology, covering various tangible assets including bonds, real estate, and commodities. Unlike pure digital assets, RWA has physical value backing, bringing traditional financial asset liquidity and intrinsic value to the crypto market. This field is viewed as one of the most promising market opportunities in the blockchain industry, with an estimated market potential of hundreds of trillions of dollars. As of January 23, 00:00 (UTC+0), the sector has risen 90% over 7 days.

Key tokens in the sector include: CHEX (up 17.3% over 7 days) and ONDO (up 2% over 7 days). [10]

Solana Meme — These tokens are meme tokens launched on the Solana blockchain. They typically focus on generating hype and speculation, driven by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) effects and speculative psychology rather than real applications and utility value. They often have extremely high volatility and risk, but can potentially bring considerable speculative returns during bull markets. As of January 23, 00:00 (UTC+0), the sector has risen 28% over 7 days.

Key tokens in the sector include: $1 (up 1,130% over 7 days), BONK (up 10.6% over 7 days), and FARTCOIN (up 15.3% over 7 days) [11]

Top Performers

According to CoinGecko data, the top-performing tokens over the past 7 days are as follows: [12]

RAY (Raydium) – 7-day increase of approximately 37.1%, with a circulating market cap of $2.281B.

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain for decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Raydium has a first-mover advantage as an AMM in Serum and will be instrumental in bringing new and existing projects and protocols into the ecosystem.

Thanks to the recent popularity of the PolitiFi sector, particularly tokens like $TRUMP, Raydium’s trading volume has increased significantly. Meanwhile, RAY’s buyback program data shows that it has repurchased tokens worth over $100 million. Both the trading volume and buyback program have attracted considerable investor attention, driving the price increase. [13]

SOL (Solana) – 7-day increase of approximately 24.7%, with a circulating market cap of $125.038B.

Recently, Trump’s official token launch on the Solana chain has led to a massive increase in capital inflow to the entire Solana ecosystem, causing more investors to recognize Solana’s potential.

Four institutions, including VanEck, 21Shares, Canary, and Bitwise, have submitted Solana ETF applications, with the SEC’s first review deadline set for January 25, 2025. The market generally expects that the SEC might take a unified approach to reviewing these Solana ETF applications. [14]

PLUME (Plume) – 7-day increase of approximately 24%, with a circulating market cap of $31.60M.

Plume Protocol is a blockchain project focused on bringing real-world assets (RWA) on-chain, using DeFi infrastructure to digitally transform physical assets such as real estate and commodities, providing higher liquidity and efficiency for traditional financial assets.

As an emerging project in the RWA sector, Plume Protocol has gained market recognition through its vertical integration of technology stacks to meet institutional and retail demand for yield-bearing assets, with its compliance and interoperability design. PLUME token’s recent price increase is mainly due to the launch of the project’s airdrop activity, which has generated significant market attention. [15]

Weekly Spotlights

Hot Topic Review

Trump’s Inaugural Speech Omits Crypto, Market Continues to Fluctuate

In his inaugural speech, U.S. President Trump focused on economic recovery and immigration policy, but made no mention of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. During this period, the crypto market experienced significant volatility, with over $824 million in liquidations within 24 hours. Despite market expectations that the Trump administration might establish a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve (SBR), former BitMex CEO Arthur Hayes suggested that the likelihood of Trump incorporating Bitcoin into reserves remains low given the current economic and political climate. Meanwhile, Trump has appointed Mark Uyeda and Caroline Pham to lead the SEC and CFTC respectively, which could influence future cryptocurrency regulations.

Trump’s silence has brought uncertainty to the crypto market, though this may be a temporary phenomenon. The new administration’s regulatory stance and policy direction will gradually become clearer. Notably, despite market fluctuations, Bitcoin has maintained relative stability, demonstrating its resilience as a digital asset. However, investors should closely monitor the new government’s policy developments, particularly potential changes in cryptocurrency regulation. [16]

Bitwise Files for Dogecoin ETF Registration in Delaware

The Delaware Department of State website announced that Bitwise has submitted documents to register the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF. The creation day is January 22, 2025, with CSC DELAWARE TRUST COMPANY listed as the registered agent.

This move not only reflects growing market demand for cryptocurrency-related financial products and investor interest in diversified investment tools but also indicates increasing recognition and regulatory adaptability towards crypto-related financial products. In the long term, this could promote the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency ETFs, provide investors with more compliant investment channels, and advance the maturity of the cryptocurrency market and regulatory framework. [17]

Trump Pardons Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road, Igniting Crypto Community Discussion

Trump officially signed a pardon for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, fulfilling one of his promises made at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. Ross was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years in 2015 for creating the darknet marketplace “Silk Road.” During his 11 years of imprisonment, over 250,000 organizations and individuals expressed support, with more than 600,000 people signing petitions demanding his release. This move is seen as Trump’s political gesture to ease crypto community concerns over his TRUMP token issuance, while also demonstrating his commitment to fulfilling campaign promises.

Ross’s release carries profound historical significance. As a key figure in Bitcoin’s history, he provided the first large-scale application for Bitcoin through the Silk Road platform, helping drive Bitcoin from $0.1 to significant breakthroughs. Although his methods were highly controversial, they undeniably provided important momentum for Bitcoin’s early development. This pardon also reflects the crypto community’s adherence to libertarian ideals and society’s evolving attitudes toward past controversial events. [18]

Security Incident

Cuban Official X Account Hacked, Tokens Related to Incident Issued

On January 20, the official X account of the Cuban government (formerly Twitter) was hacked, with hackers deploying related tokens and using the account to post information about the incident. According to X user @retardmode, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ official X account was reportedly hacked and used to promote a token called CUBA issued by Pump.fun. The related content has since been deleted.[19]

According to data from Pump.fun, the token developer has released more than 5 tokens named CUBA and has a history of rug pulls. Investors are advised to exercise caution.[20]

Project Highlights

Cow DAO Proposes Plan to Optimize Price-Improvement Sharing, Revenue-Sharing, and Fee Models

Cow DAO has introduced a new proposal, CIP-61, on Snapshot. The proposal aims to refine the revenue model of the CoW protocol. The proposal suggests continuing price-improvement sharing as the primary revenue source while introducing new strategies to test both price improvement and fee models. If approved, this proposal will take effect on February 1, 2025. The proposal also allows partners to charge fees for transactions attributed to their user traffic and introduces a revenue-sharing mechanism. In the future, Cow DAO can adjust price improvement sharing, revenue sharing, and fee structures through new proposals at any time to ensure the protocol’s flexibility and sustainability.

CoW Protocol is a completely permissionless trading protocol that utilizes batch auctions as a price discovery mechanism. The CoW protocol uses batch auctions to maximize liquidity through “Coincidences of Wants” (CoWs) and utilizes all available on-chain liquidity when needed.[21][22]

Data Highlights

RWA Protocol TVL Grows Over 200% YoY to $7.3 Billion

The Total Value Locked (TVL) in RWA protocols has climbed to $7.3 billion, achieving a year-over-year growth rate of over 200%. In this growth, Usual Protocol and Hashnote USYC are leading the market with approximately $1.48 billion TVL each. Hashnote, as a regulated digital asset platform, provides innovative investment strategies, while Usual Protocol, as a decentralized stablecoin issuer, tokenizes real assets and redistributes value to users through governance tokens.

The composition of RWA protocol TVL has significantly shifted towards government bonds, which now account for approximately 66.6% of total RWA TVL, up from 36% a year ago. Analysts suggest this shift indicates growing investor confidence in regulatory-compliant, government-backed digital assets, while also signaling market maturation as protocols increasingly focus on traditional financial instruments. [23]

Ethereum Leads 2024 Gas Fee Revenue at $2.48B, Tron Ranks Second

In 2024, Ethereum topped the blockchain rankings with $2.48 billion in gas fee revenue, followed by Tron at $2.15 billion, and Bitcoin in third place at $922 million. The report indicates that L1 and L2 blockchains collectively generated over $6.89 billion in transaction fees, with L1 chains accounting for $6.6 billion and L2 chains generating $295 million.

This data reflects the growing importance and dominance of blockchain technology in financial transactions and decentralized applications. It not only demonstrates the market’s broad recognition and utilization of blockchain platforms’ economic models and value capture capabilities as infrastructure for transaction processing and smart contract execution, but also indicates that decentralized financial solutions are becoming strong competitors to traditional financial transaction methods, potentially driving structural changes in the financial industry and promoting more efficient, transparent, and cost-effective transaction processing methods. [24]

Stablecoin Total Supply Exceeds $212.9B, Reaching All-Time High

According to DeFiLlama data, the total stablecoin supply rose 3.01% in 7 days to reach an all-time high of $212.9 billion. With Trump’s potential push for looser financial regulation and monetary policy, investors and users appear more willing to enter the cryptocurrency market. This surge may also reflect how increasing global economic and political uncertainties are driving people to seek risk diversification through blockchain technology and stablecoins as a new asset class. This shift could ultimately accelerate the evolution of fintech and regulatory frameworks to accommodate the growing prominence of digital assets and decentralized finance. [25]

Market Opportunities

Project Airdrops

Airdrop Project to Watch This Week: SoSoValue

SoSoValue is a one-stop financial research platform serving cryptocurrency investors. The platform helps investors conduct more effective investment research by providing authentic, high-quality macro market information. Platform features include an AI-based news classification system, research reports, and functionality connecting macroeconomic data with cryptocurrency markets. Additionally, SoSoValue will launch its token on Ethereum next week, with plans to airdrop 49 million $SOSO tokens in Q1, representing 4.9% of the total supply. [26]

How to Participate:

• Website Registration: Register using email and receive 11,000 points directly upon successful registration
• Complete Daily and Social Tasks: Click on points in the upper right corner and complete tasks, including check-ins, X (formerly Twitter) activities, etc.

Note:
The airdrop program and participation methods are subject to change. Users are advised to follow SoSoValue’s official channels for the latest updates. Additionally, users should exercise caution, be aware of potential risks, and conduct thorough research before participating. Gate.io does not guarantee the distribution of future airdrop rewards.

Weekly Fundraising Report

Multiple projects successfully completed fundraising this week, covering various fields including SVM, DeFi, and DePIN. Based on RootData’s statistics for the period of January 18–24, 11 projects announced funding totaling over $40 million. Here are the top three funding rounds: [27]

SOON completed a $22 million funding round on January 21, led by Hack VC, with participation from companies including ABCDE, Anagram, and Hypersphere. A significant portion of this funding will be used to support SOON’s ecosystem development and infrastructure. SOON is a rollup stack aimed at providing top-tier performance for all layer-1 blockchains, supported by Decoupled SVM and configurable DA layer.

CORN secured $8.3 million in funding on January 23, led by Polychain and Arbitrum, with 675 new investors participating. This funding aims to establish Bitcoin as the dominant and most liquid asset in decentralized finance (DeFi). Corn Protocol is an Ethereum L2 network focused on improving transaction efficiency and reducing costs. Its unique feature lies in using hybrid tokenized Bitcoin as fuel while providing excess returns to users.

NXT raised $8.2 million on January 20, with investment from Rollman Management. The new funding will support building a circular supply chain operating system, enterprise twin networks for scalable deployment, interactive commerce portals, and digital smart tags for products. NXT is a blockchain-based trade operating system that replaces outdated manual processes with seamless automation, improving compliance, speed, and cost-effectiveness.

What to Watch Next Week

Token Unlock

According to Token Unlocks, several significant token unlock events are scheduled for next week (January 25–31, 2025), with the total value of unlocked tokens exceeding $600 million. [28]

Here are the top 3 token unlock events for next week:

OP: Approximately 31.34 million tokens will be unlocked on January 31, 2025, at 12:00 AM (UTC+0), representing 2.32% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $52.97 million. With OP’s recent average daily trading volume at around $159 million, this unlock could have a moderate impact on the token’s price.

ENA: About 12.86 million tokens will be unlocked on January 29, 2025, at 7:00 AM (UTC+0), representing 0.42% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $10.83 million. With ENA’s recent average daily trading volume at around $469 million, this unlock is expected to have minimal impact on the price.

FET: Approximately 3.34 million tokens will be unlocked on January 28, 2025, at 12:00 PM (UTC+0), representing 0.13% of circulating supply, valued at approximately $4.18 million. With FET’s recent average daily trading volume at around $242 million, this unlock is expected to have minimal impact on the price.

Crypto Calendar

Several significant events next week (January 25–31, 2025) will affect the cryptocurrency market, global economy, and energy markets. The BNX network will undergo an upgrade on January 27. [29] On January 27, 2025, the U.S. will release the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Business Index. [30] On January 29, 2025, the U.S. will release API crude oil inventory data for the week ending January 23. This data primarily reveals changes in U.S. crude oil inventories, where a decrease indicates rising demand, while an increase suggests oversupply. [31] On January 30, 2025, the U.S. will announce the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision (upper limit), which reveals key dynamics of the U.S. economy and has profound implications for global financial markets and economic policies. [32]

References:

1. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/trade/BTC_USDT
2. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/trade/ETH_USDT
3. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories
4. Coinglass,https://www.coinglass.com/zh/pro/options/OIExpiry
5. Cryptocraft,https://www.cryptocraft.com/calendar?day=jan15.2025
6. Defillama,https://defillama.com/stablecoins
7. Etherscan,https://etherscan.io/gastracker
8. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories
9. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/politifi
10. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/real-world-assets-rwa
11. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/solana-meme-coins
12. CoinGecko,https://www.coingecko.com
13. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/price/raydium-ray
14. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/price/solana-sol
15. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/trade/PLUME_USDT
16. CBS NEWS,https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-trump-inauguration-speech-2025/
17. ICIS,https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/eCorp/EntitySearch/NameSearch.aspx?_=1737585406503
18. BC,https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o
19. X,https://x.com/retardmode/status/1881305937212051502
20. Pump.fun,https://pump.fun/profile/9e5mHzSwYLenzBm6z14KBS1vEhJkna8PU19RCe4513TM
21. Snapshot,https://snapshot.org/#/s:cow.eth/proposal/0xbafee087f3a1d5757e44a72fa76e8624ce212623153816a936a8888741485ef5
22. COW,https://docs.cow.fi/?utm_source=cow.fi&utm_medium=web&utm_content=menubar-nav-item-docs
23. Theblock,https://www.theblock.co/data/decentralized-finance/real-world-assets/total-value-locked-rwa-by-protocol
24. X,https://x.com/coingecko/status/1882050656367968352
25. Defillama,https://defillama.com/?tvl=false&stables=true
26. SoSoValue,https://sosovalue.com/
27. Rootdata,https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
28. Token Unlocks,https://token.unlocks.app/
29. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/calendar
30. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/
31. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/
32. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/

Gate Research
Gate Research is a comprehensive blockchain and cryptocurrency research platform that delivers in-depth content. This includes technical analysis, hot topic insights, market reviews, industry research, trend forecasts, and macroeconomic policy analysis.

Click here to visit now

Disclaimer
Investing in the cryptocurrency market involves high risk, and it is recommended that users conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of the assets and products they are purchasing before making any investment decisions. Gate.io is not responsible for any losses or damages caused by such investment decisions.