High Sigma Markets, Rollercoaster Price Swings
For weeks, the trade was simple: sell risk, buy metals. BTC slipped below $85,000 on January 29, but the real damage came after. Trump named Kevin Warsh as his pick for Fed Chair the next day, and the "vibes-based" era of easing was over. The dollar ripped higher, dragging the inflation-hedge trade down with it. Silver dropped 20% in a single session, while gold continued to shed $400 in 48 hours. With the safe haven trade unwinding, there was nowhere left to rotate. BTC cratered to below $60,000.
The selloff hit everything, including crypto equities. But the real mystery isn't just token prices, it's the infrastructure underneath. Circle processed $8.4 trillion in USDC volume in January, an all-time high, yet the company's valuation is down 80% from its peak.
So is this capitulation, or mispricing?
New & Noteworthy
Our listing desk is straddling two centuries at once. Silver, Platinum, and Palladium Futures all went live this week, joining GOLD Futures. Four metals, 24/7 trading, with Silver launching at zero fees for a limited time. The 20th century "hard money" trade, just with better UI.
Then there's the Clanker ecosystem. CLANKER, CLAWD, MOLT, and CLAWNCH, AI social tokens built on Base, all landed with fee-free trading. They're moving AI out of the server room and into the chatroom, driving conversations, shaping community vibes, and proving that the next big layer in crypto isn't code, but character.
Weekly Events Highlights
CLAWDBOT Pulse: $200K in play across a three-tiered reward pool. New users pick up $30 across deposit, Spot, and Futures trades, while heavy hitters chase the 100,000 USDT volume pool. Low floor to enter, high ceiling to chase. Show up, trade, get paid.
The Zero-Interest Carry: MEXC Loans is offering 0% interest borrowing. Pledge your BTC, ETH, SOL, or XRP, borrow USDT or USDC, and put the capital to work across the platform while keeping your positions open.
The Prediction Trade
While nearly every token and equity sold off, two protocols moved in the opposite direction. Jupiter integrated Polymarket, bringing prediction markets to Solana for the first time. Hyperliquid followed with HIP-4, a proposal to add fully collateralized outcome trading to its derivatives engine. HYPE rallied 19% this week amid a broader selloff.
The interest makes sense when you look at the numbers. Prediction markets processed roughly $12 billion in volume in January alone, with Polymarket and Kalshi each clearing billions. Jupiter is approaching it as an aggregator, embedding Polymarket inside its app the same way it routes token swaps. Hyperliquid is building it natively, with no leverage, no liquidations, and permissionless deployment for third-party builders.
Both are betting that prediction markets become a core product for on-chain platforms, not a sideshow. When two of the biggest on-chain platforms make the same bet at the same time, it's worth paying attention.
Prediction markets just went from novelty to infrastructure.
As always, we'll keep watching the narratives as they form. See you in the markets.
