Trading Moments: "Sell America" trades ignite gold to a new high of $4,888; Bitcoin shows short-term divergence; Ethereum faces a battle to defend $2,800.

Daily market data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

1. Market Observation

Global financial markets were thrown into turmoil on January 20th by a sharp sell-off in Japanese long-term government bonds . Fears that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's expansionary fiscal plan could trigger a "Japanese version of the Trus moment" drove the yield on 40-year Japanese government bonds to a historic low of 4 %. This sell-off, described by traders as "crazy," quickly transmitted pressure to the United States through Japan, one of the world's largest holders of US Treasury bonds, pushing the 10-year US Treasury yield up to 4.311% . Citigroup even warned that volatility in the Japanese bond market could force risk parity funds to sell up to $130 billion in bonds in the US market.

As US stocks opened on Tuesday, the market was released by Trump's earlier reiteration of the need to control Greenland and his threat to impose tariffs on several European countries, triggering a "sell America" trading pattern. US stocks, bonds, and the dollar suffered a triple blow , with the S&P 500 plunging 2.1%, completely erasing its year-to-date gains, and the VIX fear index jumping to its highest level since November. In retaliation, Akademiker Pension, a Danish pension fund managing $25 billion in assets, announced it would liquidate its holdings of US Treasury bonds by the end of the month due to concerns about credit risks posed by US policies.

In this global wave of risk aversion, funds have poured into hard assets, with unprecedented demand for silver from global retail investors, leading to depleted refinery inventories in many countries. The Polish central bank announced its approval of a plan to acquire 150 tons of gold , further reinforcing the trend of central banks hedging against currency devaluation and geopolitical risks. This pushed spot gold prices above $4,800 per ounce for the first time in history, briefly reaching a record high of $4,888 . Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Bessenter attempted to reassure the market, stating that he had communicated with Japanese officials and would stabilize the market, adding that he was not worried about any sell-off of US Treasury bonds triggered by the Greenland issue. However, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio warned that a "capital war" might be brewing. Looking ahead, with the Federal Reserve's independence being tested by the Supreme Court case, the market's eerie calm has been completely shattered. Unless fundamental issues of geopolitics and fiscal discipline are resolved, violent volatility may become the new normal for the market.

Bitcoin fell below the $90,000 mark, briefly dipping to $87,790, erasing all gains this year, with over $1.8 billion in liquidations across the network within 48 hours. Analyst Michaël van de Poppe emphasized the need to closely monitor Japanese government bond yields and gold prices; if both continue to surge, the market will remain under pressure, and the BTC/gold exchange rate has fallen to a historic low, requiring technical support at the 50-day moving average to avoid a deep correction. Trader Killa, comparing the market to 2022, pointed out that if the previous high of $94,600 cannot be recovered, the price may continue to decline, considering MicroStrategy's average holding price of $75,979 as a significant psychological support level. More pessimistic predictions came from veteran trader Peter Brandt, who warned that a pullback from $98,000 could lead to a drop to $60,000 or lower, while Cheds Trading even suggested a bottom range of $35,000 to $45,000.

However, strong bullish sentiment also exists in the market. Trader il Capo of Crypto believes the current area is a key support level, and if it holds, the next target is $100,000. Analyst Sykodelic even believes that even if the price falls below $80,000 for liquidity clearing, it would still be a healthy correction in a bull market, preparing for a move towards $110,000. Analyst Astronomer, although forced to exit due to stop-loss orders, maintains a bullish bias, believing a weekly bottom is forming, targeting $95,000 and $112,000, and predicting that even in a bear market, the bottom will be above $50,000. On-chain data provides strong support for the bulls. Santiment's monitoring shows that whale addresses holding 100,000 to 10,000 Bitcoins have increased their holdings by more than 36,000 Bitcoins in the past nine days, showing a bullish divergence of "smart money" accumulation. Analyst Garrett fundamentally refuted the bear market theory, emphasizing that the current macroeconomic environment is completely different from that of 2022, and that institutional entry through ETFs has changed the market structure. Unless a new inflationary shock occurs and prices effectively fall below $80,850, any talk of a bear market is premature.

Regarding Ethereum , the price nearly fell below the $2,900 mark, with technical patterns and on-chain data exhibiting a complex interplay. Analyst Krugman points out that ETH's failure to break through the key $3,450 level means the bearish pinbar pattern on the weekly chart remains valid, with key support at the $2,700-$2,800 range. A break below this area could see the price plummet to $1,700. Man of Bitcoin analysis suggests that ETH has broken through micro-support; as long as the price remains above $2,772, the triangle pattern remains valid, but the risk of a direct downward move should be noted. Although the CVD indicator is negative, the price found support above $3,000, indicating that large players are absorbing selling pressure. Harvey Hunter analyzes from a technical perspective that ETH is building a two-month symmetrical triangle; if it can hold current support and break through $3,350, it could potentially initiate a rebound towards a new all-time high of $4,800. However, Arthur Hayes warns that if the Japanese debt crisis causes the MOVE index to surge above 130, risk assets, including ETH, will face a painful deleveraging process.

While major cryptocurrencies experienced volatility, Solana , though falling below $130 along with the broader market, saw on-chain data reveal that whales were accumulating SOL, with a significant increase in addresses holding 1,000 to 10,000 SOL. Exchange supply also dropped to a two-year low, while network activity and stablecoin supply both reached new highs. Meanwhile, the combination of politics and memes became a new speculative hotspot. A tweet from the White House official account, "The memes will continue," led today's BSC meme price movement. Binance co-founder He Yi also retweeted the tweet, causing the market capitalization of the related meme coin "$ memes " to surge to a peak of $20 million. (*Note: This content is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Please conduct your own research.)

2. Key Data (as of 13:00 HKT, January 21)

(Data source: CoinAnk, Upbit, SoSoValue, CoinMarketCap)

• Bitcoin: $89,746 (year-to-date +2.35%), daily spot trading volume $59.44 billion.

• Ethereum: $2,985 (year-to-date +0.46%), daily spot trading volume $33.68 billion.

• Fear of Greed Index: 24 (Panic)

• Average GAS: BTC: 1.75 sat/vB, ETH: 0.02 Gwei

• Market share: BTC 59.1%, ETH 12.4%

• Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: AXS, XRP, BTC, BRA, IP

• 24-hour BTC long/short ratio: 48.63% / 51.37%

• Sector Performance: Crypto market broadly declined, with the CeFi sector leading the drop, falling over 5%.

24-hour liquidation data: A total of 139,733 people worldwide were liquidated, with a total liquidation amount of $764 million. This included $297 million in BTC liquidations, $261 million in ETH liquidations, and $30.12 million in SOL liquidations.

3. ETF Flows (as of January 20)

• Bitcoin ETF: -$483 million

• Ethereum ETF: -$230 million

• XRP ETF: -$53.32 million

• SOL ETF: +$3.08 million

4. Today's Outlook

• Registration for the Zama public token auction is now open, and bidding will begin at 16:00 on January 21st.

• ETHGas: GWEI airdrop eligibility will be available on January 20th, and the community airdrop will take place on January 21st.

• Solana Mobile will airdrop 2 billion SKR tokens to Seeker users on January 21st.

• MegaETH will launch its mainnet on January 22nd, with a global stress test to begin first.

• Immunefi will launch its platform token IMU on January 22nd.

• Binance Alpha will launch on January 22nd.

• Final reading of US Q3 real GDP annualized quarter-on-quarter growth (January 21, 21:30)

• US initial jobless claims for the week ending January 17 (in thousands): Expected 209,000, previous 198,000 (January 21, 21:30)

The top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with the largest gains today are: River up 21.9%, Canton Network up 6.7%, Tezos up 5.5%, Midnight up 4.2%, and World Liberty Financial up 3.8%.

5. Hot News

• Spot gold broke through $4,850 per ounce, setting a new record high.

• Japanese and South Korean stock markets opened more than 1% lower.

• Pendle introduces the sPENDLE mechanism to replace vePENDLE and introduce liquidity staking.

• Galaxy plans to launch a $100 million crypto hedge fund in Q1 2026, with up to 30% of its assets invested in crypto tokens.

• Solana Mobile has launched its native token, SKR, and Seeker users can claim an airdrop before April 20th.

• US stocks closed sharply lower: all three major indexes fell, and blockchain concept stocks generally declined.

• Trend Research withdrew another 7,960 ETH from Binance, bringing its total purchases today to 17,899 ETH.

• Strategy spent $2.13 billion to acquire 22,305 more Bitcoins.

• Trove Markets' token plummeted by over 95% within minutes of its listing, further exacerbating the negative impact.