Bitcoin Volatile With Opportunities, DOT Doubles in a Week: A Weekly Market Review by TokenInsight

How long will the “fluctural-bull” remain?  What’s the trend of the short- and long-term market? Hints and traces could be found in TokenInsight’s weekly market review. 

BTC Jumping Between $30,000 and $40,000

Lots of investors have anticipated the market’s callback, but almost no one realized that this callback is so huge that Bitcoin would fall by more than $8,000 (nearly 20%) in 24 hours, which was close to the $30,000 line at the lowest point. Ethereum also followed the trend and fell below $1,000. The trading volume broke a record on that day: for only the exchanges tracked by TokenInsight, the total daily trading volume of Bitcoin spot and perpetual contracts reached $203.61B, surpassing the weekly trading volume in many periods of last year.

Investors had done some preparations for the fall. Generally speaking, the market's callback after the holiday bull market is a universal law, for many institutional investors would choose to close their positions at a high level to make profits and sell call options after the vacation, which will lead to an increase in supply and a sharp drop in spot and futures prices. At the same time, a large number of individual investors would also follow the institutional investors to choose to clear out at a high level and wait for the next opportunity to enter the market.

But this does not mean that panic did not happen. The huge short-term decline caused a large number of positions owned by futures traders to be liquidated, and the liquidation volume of positions reached the highest point of recent months on Jan. 11. For individual investors, market trends are too complicated to judge: this may mean that the "March 12" incident will repeat itself after a year. The skewness of the options market (an indicator that can be used to judge market sentiment) was once below the zero line on Jan. 11, and the bearish sentiment permeated. On the same day, the bit.com options exchange, where individual investors were more concentrated, showed a large number of put options buying volume.

To be honest, gambling is not an investment strategy worth boasting about. The huge volatility of the market and the variability of cryptos’ prices mean that any investment in the near future must be carefully judged and considered. Let's take a look together at what the market might tell us.

Recent Waves Don’t Mean Long-Term Shock

From the perspective of implied volatility and historical volatility, the continuous entanglement of historical volatility and implied volatility starting in January 2021 is not good news. Implied volatility determines the prices of options, and when the historical volatility is higher than the implied volatility, it often indicates that people are unwilling to pay more premiums for future market trends, which in turn reflects poor market sentiment.

Furthermore, the entanglement of historical volatility and implied volatility means that investors find it hard to make judgments about the market and are in a mood of uncertainty. Although the prices of mainstream digital assets have rebounded, the trading volume reveals that investors still tend to be cautious in their trading attitudes.

From the perspective of the implied volatility surface, although the curve of options expiring in the short-term appears to be left-skewed (which often means investors are bearish in the short-term), for long-term options, the curve still maintains a right-skewed shape, and similar situations have been going on for months. This means that investors are still optimistic about the long-term of Bitcoin. Despite the recent high volatility, the mainstream attitude of the market still has not changed. From this perspective, long-term investment in bitcoin is still worthwhile.

However, investors still need to face crypto price shocks that may last for several weeks. For short-term traders, it is very necessary to adopt a cautious investment attitude in the near future, capture the turmoil from the market and detect and control risks in time. The market is full of volatility, variability,and veers, and this will be a difficult but memorable period for investors.

DOT Price Doubles, Sees Five Times Trading Volume Increase This Week

As could be expected from the traditional market, high waves bring up excellent surfers. “Blue chip” token DOT dazzled this week as the market shook. Though the price of DOT called back a little when Bitcoin dropped this week on Jan. 11, it boosted to $15 on Jan. 15, a 88% increase compared with last week, nearly doubling and reaching its all-time high. The trading volume reached $4.39 billion. Currently, the market capitalization of DOT has surpassed Ripple’s XRP and Litecoin, becoming the fourth ranked crypto asset. 

As TokenInsight predicted in December 2020, Polkadot hasn’t let the investors down, which reflects a trend that “blue chips” like DOT will become one of the most popular sectors in the crypto market. 

Highlights Picked by TokenInsight

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks Is Expected to Leave the Agency by the End of the Week

As the Democratic stepping to the White House, Trump-nominated head of the federal bank, acting head of OCC Brain Brook is about to step down by the end of the week. Biden-nominated head of the SEC,Gray Gensler will take over the role. 

Bakkt to Become a Publicly Traded Company via Merger With VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings

Jan 11, 2021, as a qualified cryptocurrencies custodian, Bakkt announced it was merging with a Chicago investment company called Victory Park Capital, changing its name into “Bakkt Holdings.” Bakkt investors will roll their equity into the combined company, with Intercontinental Exchange contributing an additional $50 million in the capital. Combined company valued at an enterprise value of approximately $2.1 billion. 

HSBC Blocks Transactions From Crypto Exchanges

Jan 11, 2021, HSBC has become the latest banking giant to restrict what its customers can invest in by preventing them from transferring any profits from crypto exchanges to their bank accounts. This action may be correlated with the money laundering fined by FinCEN in September 2020.