Crypto
Hands pulling on rope during game of tug-of-war
(Getty Images)

Bitcoin is in a “macro tug-of-war” as asset struggles to recover

Bitcoin is resting on a 200-week EMA, “a key level that systematic and momentum trading strategies look at.”

Bitcoin dipped below $67,000 early Wednesday morning, but a better-than-expected jobs report has lifted Bitcoin back above that level.

Gracy Chen, Bitget CEO, said that over the past week, bitcoin has been trading in a “macro tug-of-war” regime, where price action is mainly driven by geopolitics, rate expectations, and liquidity conditions rather than crypto-native narratives.

Pratik Kala, portfolio manager and head of research at Apollo Crypto, said that bitcoin is now resting on a 200-week exponential moving average, “a key level that systematic and momentum trading strategies look at.”

“Breaking below would indicate more downside pressure. Market participants typically eye this level as it’s a big one,” he said.

Kala said that while it’s “hard to make predictions in the market,” if we break below that price, “we could retest 65k.”

Crypto chart
(Apollo Crypto)

Bitget’s Chen said that from a technical perspective, the market is stabilizing after the shakeout, which is why her base case is consolidation in a $60,000 to $75,000 range for the next few weeks, potentially up to a month.

“That said, there’s a downside scenario, as a move toward $50,000 remains a real risk if sellers keep pressing and shorts stay aggressive, since this is the next meaningful ‘gravity level’ — a support zone that can attract bids and fuel a sharp bounce if forced selling depletes,” she said.

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Ethereum ETF holders still “diamond-handing” despite hurting more than their bitcoin counterparts

Holders of spot ethereum ETFs are in more pain than bitcoin investors. 

The price of ethereum stands around $1,940 as of Wednesday morning, representing about a 45% drop from $3,500, the average cost basis of spot ethereum ETF holders, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart. 

The losses of ethereum ETF holders are larger than bitcoin fund investors based on available data. Bitcoin is trading at $68,822, representing an 18% slide from the the cost basis for all its ETFs of $83,983, data from Glassnode shows

While facing larger losses than their bitcoin ETF peers, the vast majority of ethereum ETF buyers have stayed put. “The net inflows into the ETH ETFs have gone from about $15 billion down below $12 billion. This is a much worse selloff than the Bitcoin ETFs on a relative basis, but still fairly decent diamond hands in grand scheme (for now),” Seyffart said on Tuesday on X.

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Meme coins have lost all their 2026 gains and continue to dive

Despite having an early lead in year-to-date gains, meme coins have round-tripped and bled even more. 

For example, frog-based token pepe was up 75% in the first four days of January, but is now about 8% lower than where it started the year. Dogecoin, shiba inu, bonk, pengu, dogwifhat, and trump tell a similar story: posting a positive gain and then slumping into the red. 

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The year-to-date price performances of the top meme coins by market capitalization (TradingView)

Meme coins, cryptocurrencies based on internet jokes that are often critiqued for lacking utility, are reflexive: they can lead gains during bullish market conditions, but see sharper declines in bearish ones. The entire category of meme coins has shed 25.8% of its valuation in the year so far, data from blockchain analytics firm Artemis shows.

The price action of meme coins comes amid a broader market decline that saw bitcoin drop to $63,000 last week as its peers revisited cycle lows

“The market has, in large, been bleeding, whether major, altcoin, or meme,” according to Nicolai Søndergaard, research analyst at on-chain data firm Nansen. “It is not surprising to me to see that larger memes as well have been trending down.”

He told Sherwood News, “If we also consider the fact that there are less active wallets now compared to a few months ago, it also makes sense that larger ‘household’ memes would decline as money shifts around to the next shiny thing.”

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XRP bouncing back faster than its peers after crypto market downturn

XRP is seeing the strongest relief bounce on Friday among its peers following the broad market downturn in crypto.

XRP hit its lowest mark since 2024 on Thursday, but the price of the cryptocurrency has increased roughly 20% in the last 24 hours, outpacing Bitcoin and ethereum, which have seen 6.5% and 5.2% gains, respectively. Dogecoin has climbed 8% and solana is up 5% in the same period, data from CoinGecko shows.

XRPs “price tends to amplify market movements,” Kaiko research analyst Thomas Probst told Sherwood News. “Markets are experiencing a phase of liquidity contraction with increasing volatility. Therefore, rebounds can be frequent, even if they are rarely sustained over the long term.”

The relief comes amid increased activity on the XRP Ledger. Crypto analytics firm Santiment flagged that, during the dip, XRP Ledger saw a four-month high of “whale transactions” over $100,000 and a six-month high of unique addresses on the network in one eight-hour candle. “These are both major signals of a price reversal for any asset,” the firm said. 

Ripple, the company closely tied to XRP and its largest holder, said in a Thursday blog post that XRP is “at the heart of every institutional use case,” such as stablecoin payments, tokenized collateral, and lending markets. 

In an updated road map for the XRP Ledger, the firm outlined upcoming features that act as a “building block for composable financial ecosystems.” These features include a lending protocol, confidential transfers using zero-knowledge proofs, and a new layer of programmability to escrow primitives. 

Meanwhile, spot XRP ETFs absorbed $5.9 million worth of inflows on Thursday, helping the week remain in the black at nearly $24 million.

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