With 69,000 coins for sale and risk aversion surging, Bitcoin may fall to $70,000?

The bell of 2025 is ringing, but the market seems to have entered garbage time.

Even Bitcoin did not expect that $100,000 would become the criterion for judging bulls and bears. I thought that Bitcoin's price of $100,000 on Monday was the beginning of the next upward trend. Unexpectedly, within two days of jumping, Bitcoin began to run out of steam. During the U.S. trading session on Tuesday, the intraday low hit $92,600. It has fallen nearly 10% in two days from Monday's high of over $102,000, now trading at $94,212.

Bitcoin is watching the fire from the other side, and altcoins surrender. ETH returned to $3,300, SOL fell below $200, and the altcoin sector generally fell by 10%, led by institutional tokens such as ADA, RNDR, and Aptos. Even the US stock market was affected, with the share prices of leading mining companies such as TeraWulf, Bit Digital, Bitdeer, IREN and Hut 8 also falling by 5-8%.

Although the decline is still controllable, as the low point of Bitcoin is already close to the price of the year before, the market sentiment is also ebbing from the high tide. The sale of Silk Road also poured cold water on the market. There was a lot of discussion in the market, and even many people appeared. Analysts believe Bitcoin will fall to $70,000 before Trump’s inauguration speech. For example, analyst Ali Martinez said that BTC’s key support area is currently hovering between $97,041 and $93,806. He believes that if Bitcoin cannot meet this demand, it will fall significantly to $70,085.

To see whether this prediction comes true, we must first analyze the reasons for this round of decline.

The market generally believes that macro data released on Tuesday is the trigger for this decline. A report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that JOLTS job vacancies in the United States exceeded the 8 million mark in November, significantly exceeding expectations and exceeding the estimates of all economists surveyed by the media, setting a six-month high. This JOLTS data is mainly driven by growth in the business services industry, while demand for workers in other industries is mixed.

There were 8.098 million JOLTS job vacancies in the United States in November, compared with expectations of 7.74 million. The previous value in October was revised upward from 7.744 million to 7.8 million. Job openings in November continued the rebound seen in October. Just in September, JOLTS job vacancies unexpectedly fell sharply, hitting a new low in more than three years, triggering recession fears.

Also released at the same time as JOLTS is the US ISM Services PMI. The ISM services index recorded 54.1 in December, higher than market expectations of 53.3 and the previous 52.1. This increase was mainly due to a significant increase in the service price payment sub-index, which jumped to 64.4 from 58.2 in November, reaching the highest level since February 2023.

Overall, the macro data can be described as eye-catching, but such eye-catching data has actually led to a decline in the market. The market generally believes that due to the strong support of macro data, the Federal Reserve is very likely to continue to maintain a hawkish stance, so it needs to reprice the path of interest rate cuts. In other words, if the macro-environment improves, there will naturally be no need to open the floodgates, but the impact on the liquidity of risky assets will be unavoidable. After the data was released, traders no longer fully bet that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates before July. The S &P 500 and the Nasdaq fell one after another. In contrast, the soaring U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield and the U.S. dollar index.

Coincidentally, today the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy meeting in December last year. The content is basically the same as last month, making it clear that interest rates will become more cautious. Committee members expect the pace of rate cuts to slow significantly in 2025, with only 75 basis points expected for the full year.

Macroeconomics is the key background, but Trump’s non-stop rhetoric has further stimulated capital’s risk aversion.

Just yesterday, CNN reported that four sources revealed that US President-elect Trump is considering declaring a "national economic emergency" to provide a legal basis for imposing widespread tariffs on allies and competitors. . Reports indicate that after the United States enters a "national economic emergency," Trump will be allowed to use the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) to formulate a new tariff plan. IEEPA unilaterally authorizes the U.S. president to unilaterally authorize the U.S. president to impose tariffs during the relevant national emergency. Manage Imports”.

On January 7, at a 70-minute press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Trump made frequent and outrageous remarks, not only saying that he would "use economic means" to make Canada the 51st member of the United States. states, has not ruled out using force to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland, and has pledged to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of the United States." The Middle East issue cannot be ignored. He emphasized that if Hamas does not release the Israeli hostages before he takes office, "the Middle East will fall into chaos." Such arrogant words successfully attracted public criticism from Canada, Denmark and other countries after the press conference, and also made the market worry about the global economic trend.

Due to the uncertainty about the impact of macro interest rate cuts and tariffs, the market's risk aversion has become more prominent. The three major U.S. stock indexes have fluctuated and weakened, the U.S. dollar index has risen sharply, and non-U.S. currencies have dived. The crypto market is naturally not immune. ETFs representing institutional funds also show this point. On January 8, the US Bitcoin spot ETF had a single-day net outflow of US$583 million, and the Ethereum spot ETF had a single-day net outflow of US$159 million. Both funds showed an outflow trend.

Another incident that adds insult to injury is this morning, DB News stated that according to an official’s description, the US Department of Justice has been allowed to liquidate 69,370 BTC seized in the Silk Road case, with a total value of approximately US$6.5 billion. The rumors are not groundless. As early as December 3, the US government transferred 19,800 Bitcoins worth nearly US$2 billion related to SilkRoad to Coinbase Prime. At that time, the market interpreted it as the government's preparation for sale. The expected increase in selling pressure intensified market panic, and BTC fell by more than 1% in a short period of time, hitting below $94,000 again.

Although the panic continues, at this stage, there are less than 10 days until Trump's official swearing-in and inauguration speech, and February is the earnings season, so the market prospects are still relatively promising than negative. From the news perspective, the positive information is still supportive.

 Main lines and key nodes of transactions in 2025, picture source: CICC

First, the lawsuit between Coinbase and the SEC has turned around. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Coinbase’s motion for an interlocutory appeal, allowing it to appeal the SEC’s charges to the Second Circuit Court, temporarily halting the case in the meantime. The reason is that the judge believes that the legality of cryptocurrencies, which is divided among different courts across the country, needs to be adjudicated. If the Second Circuit agrees to hear the case, the federal government will have the opportunity to resolve the controlling legal issue of the scope of the SEC’s legal authority over digital assets. It is worth noting that since this is an appeal in the middle of the litigation, it will greatly increase the possibility of dismissal of the case, and the SEC will face a very passive situation. If the appeal is successful, the SEC's problem with the securities attributes of Coinbase's listed currencies may be solved, and altcoin ETFs are expected to be promoted.

Second, the chairman of the CTFC, who had strived to become the top regulatory body for cryptocurrencies, resigned. However, he still expressed positive sentiments about cryptography regulation in his last public speech, and the Trump team has begun to search for a successor chairman who is friendly to cryptocurrencies. The current CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, a16z crypto policy director and former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz, and Kraken’s chief legal officer Marco Santori are all under consideration. It can be seen that the Trump team has a highly unified consensus on unbundling encryption supervision.

In this context, whales have a very positive attitude towards the future trend of Bitcoin, and picking up leaks and bargain hunting have become common operations of whales.

Data compiled by @Phyrex_Ni shows that panic is evident among small holders. During the decline in the past two days, investors with holdings of less than 10 BTC have a clear trend of reducing their holdings, and exchange holdings have also continued to decline. , but large holders are relatively confident, and investors with more than 10 BTC have a clear tendency to increase their holdings.

Cauê Oliveira, director of research at Blocktrends, confirmed this data, saying that institutional investors sold a large amount of Bitcoin at the end of 2024, but have now begun to acquire it again at prices below $100,000. Wallets holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC sold 79,000 BTC in the week after December 21, but more recently, this group has been accumulating when the price of Bitcoin fell below $95,000.

As for the Silk Road, which caused panic, the impact may not be as great as expected. First of all, Trump has publicly promised that the U.S. government will not sell any Bitcoin after being elected. This move is undoubtedly a slap in the face and may be reversed later. Even if it is confirmed that it can be sold, considering the time, it will not happen overnight and may require several months of approval process. Secondly, in order to maximize profits, large sales usually take the form of off-market acquisitions, and the impact on prices is relatively controllable. In addition, even if it is a one-time entry into the market, taking into account the current liquidity, it will only last more than a week, so there is no need to cause panic. CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said, “Based on realized market capitalization, US$379 billion entered the market last year, with about US$1 billion in liquidity every day. The US$6.5 billion (Bitcoin) sold by the US government may have been absorbed within a week. "

Therefore, some institutions are very optimistic and believe that the decline caused by selling pressure is a buying opportunity. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, wrote in response to Silk Road’s entry into the market, “Diamond players are ready to buy the dip.”

Overall, although sentiment has declined and panic does exist, with the support of institutions and giant whales, even if the crypto market falls, there is a high probability that it will not usher in an avalanche. The current bottom concentration area of ​​​​Bitcoin is still around US$95,000, and the price is mostly around this as a benchmark. A large drop may return to below US$90,000, but the probability of realizing US$70,000-80,000 is small.

In addition to continued attention to Trump's administration, the next important event for the market to observe is the U.S. December non-farm payrolls report released on Friday night. Although Wednesday's ADP "small non-farm" data was lower than expected, which gave the market a slight sigh of relief, large non-agricultural data often differs greatly from ADP, and non-agricultural data is one of the key factors in the Federal Reserve's policy decision, so it is The focus of the market is that the job market that is worse than expected may make the Federal Reserve turn dovish again.

At present, the market generally expects that the number of new non-farm jobs in the United States will slow to 153,000 in December, and the unemployment rate will remain at 4.2%.