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Bitcoin saw a relief rally today that saw it retesting the resistance around $100k as optimism returned to the market ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Liquidity was returning to the crypto market in the past 24 hours as the overall crypto market capitalization recovered above $3.6 trillion, levels last seen around January 7.

Trader sentiment also improved, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index gaining 5 points to reach a neutral level of 51 when writing.

Altcoins had also flipped green, with several of the top 99 altcoins posting double-digit gains by the late trading hours on January 15.

As previously speculated by Invezz on January 13, several on-metrics may have supported Bitcoin’s recent rally, although the primary driver that gave Bitcoin the push it needed was cooler-than-expected inflation data.

Earlier this week, Bitcoin saw its exchange reserves dwindle, which market pundits speculated created a supply shock scenario.

Meanwhile, the buy-sell ratio on crypto exchange Binance, which accounts for a large chunk of the overall market’s trading volume, hinted at reduced seller strength.

Today, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released data showing a decline in core inflation, with the core Consumer Price Index dropping from 0.3% in November to 0.2% in December. On an annual basis, core inflation eased from 3.3% to 3.2%. 

This encouraging data has fueled speculation that the Federal Reserve might adopt a more dovish monetary policy, thus reigniting the market’s risk-on sentiment.

With Bitcoin currently on the move, expectations are the rally could extend over the coming days.

One reason why this could happen is because of recent reports that Donald Trump could set in motion some pro-crypto moves on his first day in office.

Trump has been pivotal for Bitcoin’s bull run this year, which transpired after his re-election due to his pro-crypto stance, which is considered bullish for an industry that has, until now, faced significant regulatory pushback.

Bitcoin’s current price action could lead to the formation of a Monthly Bull Flag pattern, as suggested by analyst Rekt Capital, which, if confirmed, may signal the continuation of the current bullish trend.

Another short-term bullish signal was shared by pseudonymous trader Shardi B, who pointed out a confirmed daily reversal in Bitcoin’s price action.

This reversal indicates that Bitcoin has successfully broken above a key resistance level, a move that often signals a shift in momentum from bearish to bullish. 

If this breakout holds, it could pave the way for further gains in the short term, reinforcing the optimism in the market.

As for long-term projections, analysts at CryptoQuant predicted that the flagship crypto could hit at least $145k this year.

They based this projection on favorable political and economic trends in the US, estimating that roughly $520 billion in fresh capital could enter the market in 2025.

When writing, Bitcoin was up over 3.4% in the past 24 hours and trading at $99,240. A break past the $100k psychological resistance would position it for further gains, as seen in the past.

After slipping into a downtrend early in the week, fueled by Bitcoin’s lackluster performance, altcoin traders celebrated Bitcoin’s recovery with bigger gains than the benchmark crypto itself.

Altcoins tend to have pronounced effects when Bitcoin is acting as the key sentiment driver.

With Bitcoin dominance still high, the altcoin season index remained below 50, which means there’s room for more gains if bullish momentum holds and Bitcoin consolidates above $100k.

Nevertheless, a lot of the altcoin projects managed to wipe off the early week losses. The leaders for the day at press time were:

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) saw the highest gains among the top 100 largest crypto assets in the market per data from CoinGecko.

Source: CoinMarketCap

The AI agentic coin rose 26% in the last 24 hours, trading at $3.61 at press time while its market cap stood at over $3.5 billion.

Notably, the altcoin has also been one of the best-performing assets in the year, recording nearly 35,000% gains.

Today, the project announced updates to its value accrual mechanism that renewed investor interest.

The changes have been designed to better incentivize AI agent creators and stakeholders.

Simultaneously, Virtuals protocol also announced a “buyback-and-burn” initiative, which will use a portion of fees generated on the platform to reduce the supply of agent tokens.

ai16z (AI16Z) was up 19.6% since yesterday and was exchanging hands at $1.5 per coin when writing.

Its market cap was seated at $1.62 billion, while its daily trading volume was at $450 million when writing.

Source: CoinMarketCap

The majority of the day’s gains came after Polygon announced support for Eliza OS,  ai16z’s AI agents-building framework.

Developers using Eliza OS can now build AI-powered projects directly on the Polygon blockchain, a feature that was previously limited to Solana.

Meanwhile, the demand from its derivatives traders has also surged over the past day, alongside an uptick in whale accumulation.

XDX Network (XDC) gained 19% over the last day, with its price rising from $0.103 to $0.123 at the time of publication.

The price rally came along with a doubling trading volume, which hovered over $116 million, while the altcoin’s market cap catapulted back to a four-year high of $1.8 billion.

Source: CoinMarketCap

XDC rallied following its partnership announcement with multi-network dApp platform PillarX, integrating XDC into its ecosystem.

The altcoin was also listed for leveraged trading on the crypto exchange OX.FUN, exposing the token to more traders.

The post Crypto price update: Bitcoin nears $100K, sparking rally for VIRTUAL, Ai16Z, and XDC appeared first on Invezz

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