Bitcoin momentarily dipped below $100k on Monday as President Trump kept crypto policy on the sidelines during his first day in office but recovered back and stabilised around $104,000 throughout the past 24 hours.
The overall cryptocurrency market capitalisation was down -0.75% in the last 24 hours at $3.76 Trillion but was quickly moving towards this week’s high of over $3.8 trillion when writing.
A risk-on sentiment returned among traders, reflected in the Crypto Fear and Greed Index rising by 8 points to 84, indicating extreme greed in the market.
Why is Bitcoin going up?
Since Trump seized victory, the crypto sector has been anticipating favourable regulations in the US market.
The momentum received a significant boost after Acting SEC Chairman Mark Udeya, temporarily replacing Gary Gensler until a permanent appointment is made, announced the establishment of a dedicated crypto task force on January 21.
The initiative spearheaded by pro-crypto commissioner Hester Peirce will collaborate with industry stakeholders and create a comprehensive framework for the digital assets market, moving away from the previous commission’s regulation by enforcement approach.
This came in as a major win for the industry, and the market reacted in kind, solidifying Bitcoin’s footing above the $103,000 support level that the flagship crypto had retested several times over the past few days.
Currently, analysts are of the opinion that the gains are expected to continue in the coming days as regulatory tensions are easing. A few key indicators also back this theory.
Firstly, whales played a major role in Bitcoin’s latest recovery.
Large investors continued buying through the dip, which is a positive sign signalling that they are confident the price could rise further.
According to analyst Ali Martinez, whales scooped up over 22,000 Bitcoin in the past 72 hours.
This accumulation could also trigger retail buying pressure, as smaller traders often follow the lead of large investors during bullish trends
Secondly, the total number of daily active addresses has increased over the past few days.
According to Martinez, this “signals a positive outlook for potential price appreciation,” as the rise in this metric aligns with the ongoing accumulation of whales.
With the current momentum in play, if BTC manages to push beyond $106,000, well-followed trader Rekt Capital sees a run up to a new all-time high in the coming days.
On the other hand, analyst Daan Crypto Traders says Bitcoin needs a daily close above $108,00 to enter price discovery.
However, when writing, pseudonymous analyst Blackmore pointed out that a diamond top pattern had formed on the 4-hour BTC chart and could lead to a pullback if the price breaks below the $103k-$104k support range.
In such a scenario the analyst expects a drop towards the $94-96k region.
Fellow analyst Val Me, however, notes the diamond pattern is not always a reversal pattern and could also mean a looming period of consolidation ahead.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading above $104,000, down 1.2% in the past 24 hours.
AI tokens post strong gains
A number of the top altcoins posted double digital gains in response to Bitcoin’s mid-week recovery.
A lot of early week momentum came after Trump-family-backed meme coins Official Trump (TRUMP) and Melania Meme (MELANIA) surfaced over the past weekend, rekindling interest in the altcoin market.
The altcoin season index rose two points over the past 24 hours to hit 45.
However, retail interest was mostly geared towards altcoins related to artificial intelligence projects after President Trump announced the $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project on January 21.
This initiative, a collaboration between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, aims to establish extensive AI data centres in the US, starting with a $100 billion investment in Texas.
The announcement of Stargate has spurred increased interest in AI-focused altcoins as investors anticipate substantial growth in the AI sector.
Today’s top gainers all came from the AI coin category. They are as follows:
ai16z
With recorded gains of 25.8% over the previous day, ai16z (AI16Z) was the leading gainer among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
The altcoin managed to rebound from the losses seen on Jan. 20 as it rose to an intraday high of $1.25 while its market cap surged over $475 million.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Investors gained interest in the AI agentic project’s native coin as it got listed on the crypto exchange Kraken Pro, which added the altcoin to its perpetual futures market.
The project has also partnered with decentralised infrastructure provider Hyperbolic to leverage its computational resources in a bid to enhance the capabilities of the AI agents running on its open-source operating system, ElizaOS.
Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), another AI agent builder made it to this list as it witnessed a 22% rise over the past day.
With a market cap of over $3 billion, the altcoin currently stands as the second-largest AI agent coin in the crypto market.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Today’s gains followed the announcement of a buyback and burn event using tax revenue collected from various projects within the ecosystem.
Over the next 30 days, the project will buy back a total of $35 million worth of tokens from the projects where they were collected and burn them, reducing supply and driving scarcity across the ecosystem.
The altcoin also surged alongside a market-wide rally among AI-focused projects following President Donald Trump’s announcement of “Stargate,” a new initiative committing $500 billion over the next four years to develop AI infrastructure in the United States.
Worldcoin
Worlcoin (WLD) rose 20% over the last 24 hours as the biometric crypto project saw its market cap soar to over $2.12 billion.
The altcoin exchanged hands at $2.27 per coin while its trading volume jumped over 147%, hovering around $1 billion when writing,
Source: CoinMarketCap
The project, co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman in 2019, rallied after news of the Stargate initiative broke, which is reportedly backed by OpenAI among other major players.
The venture capital-backed proof-of-humanity project has previously experienced rallies on news linked to OpenAI.
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