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Janu-rally

Bitcoin rallies to 3-month high

One analyst said the near-term outlook over the next three to five months points to bitcoin advancing toward the $120,000 range.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Bitcoin continues to rally following a better-than-expected CPI report on Tuesday, passing $96,000 Wednesday morning, its highest level in three months.

Bitcoin ETFs are also in the green, recording $753.7 million in inflows on Tuesday, the largest since October 7, according to SoSoValue. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund took the lion’s share, with $351.3 million in inflows, followed by the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, with $159.4 million.

Reflecting the renewed optimism, CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed Index stands at 52 (neutral), its highest level since the crypto crash on October 10 that triggered $19.1 billion in crypto liquidations.

Concerns remain around the trajectory of the administration’s probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which could affect bitcoin.

“For the crypto market, the core macro variables remain the duration of elevated interest rates and the credibility of policy institutions,” Dean Chen, an analyst at Bitunix, said.

Chen noted that in the short term, the $91,031 level is a key support to monitor, with $97,237 acting as the primary resistance zone.

“If concerns over central bank independence continue to widen — driving volatility in the dollar and real yields — crypto asset volatility is likely to increase,” he added.

On the other hand, if markets regain confidence that the policy path is not being politically distorted, bitcoin may reenter a bullish rhythm following a period of structural consolidation, he said.

“Crypto markets should remain highly attentive to how shifts in the macro narrative cascade into changes in overall risk appetite,” Chen said.

Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang said that the recent stabilization in bitcoin suggests the market is rebuilding conviction rather than chasing short-term momentum.

Zhang said the near-term outlook over the next three to five months points to bitcoin advancing toward the $120,000 range as sentiment and inflows improve.

Over a longer horizon into year-end, bitcoin could move toward $180,000, reflecting a market increasingly driven by structural demand rather than episodic speculation, Zhang said. 

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Crypto market snaps back as sentiment lifts, with altcoins from ethereum to XRP soaring

The market capitalization of the crypto industry has jumped around $83.2 billion in the last 24 hours, with privacy-focused token Zcash and worldcoin, the native cryptocurrency of the network backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, leading market gains, jumping over 22%.

But the last 24 hours have been good across the board:

Investors have been eager to see some positive signs around the Iranian conflict ending, coupled with hopeful outlooks around the CLARITY act, both breathing some life into assets, Kairos Research cofounder Ian Unsworth told Sherwood News.

Simon Shockey, a crypto strategist at crypto wallet infrastructure firm Privy, said the upswing stems from several things converging. He pointed to how alt markets broadly were very oversold following the bug found in Zcash that shook confidence.

Friday, Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said Anthropic didn’t find any more serious bugs with the Zcash protocol after Shielded Labs requested the AI firm run a security audit of the network with Mythos.

Shockey added that the pool of willing sellers has dwindled. Even if structurally, AI is a much more compelling and asymmetric bet in the eyes of allocators, many of these crypto assets have simply run out of marginal sellers despite some shorter-term narrative-driven pumps. The only people left to sell at this point are the teams themselves and VCs.

Net-net: oversold conditions plus exhausted seller bases plus a macro backdrop thats stabilized equals a snapback, especially in names that have real usage or community conviction behind them,” Shockey told Sherwood.

$389M

US Attorney David Metcalf announced Thursday the arrests of Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, alleged senior members of AudiA6, a cryptocurrency money-laundering service believed to be responsible for laundering over $389 million.

The arrests coincided with a coordinated international takedown of AudiA6 and its infrastructure, involving the search of three properties, the seizure of servers and domains connected to the organization, as well as freezing cryptocurrency assets, according to a Department of Justice press release.

Tkachuk and Ledenev were “charged by criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of sting money laundering,” the DOJ said. If convicted, they face a maximum possible sentence of 20 years of incarceration.

Per the criminal complaint, AudiA6 offered services to conceal the origin of cryptocurrency linked to criminal activity, charging fees of up to 5% of the amount laundered.

The two defendants are in custody of Republic of Georgia authorities, and the US Attorney’s Office aims to seek their extradition to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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