BitEagle News

Ripple is quietly strengthening its position in Japan.

The company just announced new partnerships with Mizuho Bank, SMBC Nikko, and Securitize Japan, all aimed at accelerating adoption of the $XRP Ledger across the country’s financial system.

This isn’t hype driven expansion. This is infrastructure work with major, systemically important institutions.

Japan has always been one of the more conservative markets when it comes to financial innovation, so moves like this matter more than flashy headlines elsewhere.

Step by step, Ripple is embedding itself deeper into real banking rails, tokenization efforts, and capital markets infrastructure. That’s exactly how long-term adoption actually happens.

While most people argue narratives on social media, this is the kind of development that compounds quietly in the background.

Price may react later. Utility tends to show up first.

Long-term holders are barely selling, and that’s telling.

Two days ago, long-term holders sold just 2.7K $BTC . That’s the lowest daily sell volume recorded so far in 2025. Not during a rally. Not during euphoria. During chop, uncertainty, and frustration.

This is what conviction actually looks like.

When price goes sideways and sentiment turns sour, weak hands usually fold first. Long-term holders doing the opposite means supply is staying tight even while short-term traders panic, overtrade, and get chopped up.

This isn’t excitement-driven behavior. It’s patience. It’s experience. It’s people who understand cycles and don’t react to every headline or red candle.

Markets don’t top when long-term holders refuse to sell. They top when those holders start distributing aggressively. We are nowhere near that.

Price can still move lower in the short term. Volatility can still shake people out. But structurally, this tells you Bitcoin is not being abandoned.

Smart money isn’t leaving. It’s waiting.

Ethereum just sent a quiet but important signal.

For the first time in six months, the validator entry queue has flipped above the exit queue. More ETH is being staked than unstaked, and new entries are now nearly double the amount of exits.

This is not driven by hype or short term price action. This is long term capital choosing to lock $ETH up despite volatility, despite chop, despite uncertainty. That matters.

When markets are euphoric, everyone stakes.
When markets are boring or painful, only conviction stays.

This shift tells me something simple. Selling pressure is being reduced at the same time confidence in Ethereum’s long term value is increasing. Less liquid ETH, more committed holders.

Price often lags behavior. On chain signals usually move first.

This does not mean an immediate pump. It means the foundation is being rebuilt quietly while attention is elsewhere.

These are the conditions that typically precede stronger moves later, not when sentiment is loud, but when participation is deliberate.

The top 7 tokens unlocking this week just hit $190.23M.

$SUI leads the pack with $78.9M coming online.
Volume spikes.
Liquidity shifts.
Positions get tested.

Unlocks like these don’t just appear, they change the flow of the market.

When big amounts hit circulation, it’s rarely subtle.

Traders and whales react, and volatility can follow fast.

The last time Hyperliquid weekly revenue dropped this low, it didn’t stay quiet for long.

Revenue dried up.
Liquidity thinned.
Everyone got comfortable.

Then the following week, setups that had been simmering finally resolved with sharp moves catching traders off guard.

That’s how these scenarios usually play out. Low revenue numbers don’t mean safety, they mean pressure building. When market flows slow and earnings compress, it’s not because risk disappeared. It’s because it’s waiting to be released.

Silence in metrics is often the calm before a forceful move.

Does history have to repeat? No. Markets owe no one consistency.

But when leverage, volume, or revenue piles up while activity fades, the outcome is rarely gentle.

Stop forcing trades.

If the setup isn’t there, do nothing.
No edge means no trade.

Patience is a position.

This is a classic whale vs. retail dynamic you want to watch closely.

When Ethereum whales are stacking $ETH while retail is selling, it often signals:
• Confidence from informed players: Whales move big amounts because they see longer-term value or upcoming catalysts that retail might not be focused on.
• Potential short-term volatility: Retail selling can push price down temporarily, creating cheaper entry points for whales.
• Market sentiment lag: Fear at retail level often lags behind real fundamentals, meaning the bottoming process could be underway.

Historically, when this pattern emerges, it precedes significant upward moves once selling pressure exhausts and whales hold steady.

Watch on-chain accumulation, wallet clustering, and large buy clusters. These give clues about where smart money is placing bets while the crowd panics.

One underrated skill in crypto is research discipline.

Everyone talks about charts, FOMO, hype coins, and moonshots but few actually dig into the fundamentals of a project.

Before you buy:
• Understand the team behind it. Are they credible? Experienced? Transparent?
• Check the tokenomics. Inflation, deflation, or staking incentives matter.
• Evaluate real use cases. Is this solving a problem or just riding a trend?
• Examine community and adoption. Strong engagement and real-world integrations are green flags.

Jumping into a coin without this context is like gambling. You might hit a win once or twice, but long-term, ignorance costs more than patience ever could.

Do the work now, and you can trade or hold with confidence later. Knowledge compounds like your capital.

Solana still leads in terms of mindshare, but the trend is worth paying attention to.

For the second year in a row, Solana was the most popular ecosystem in 2025, holding 26.79% mindshare. That said, this is a clear drop from last year’s 38.79%, a decline of roughly 12 percentage points, per CoinGecko.

Still number one, but dominance is fading.

Mindshare doesn’t disappear randomly. It slowly rotates, fragments, and reallocates. And historically, when attention shifts, capital tends to follow later.

Not a bearish signal on its own, but definitely something to monitor closely going forward.

One of the biggest mistakes people make in crypto is thinking every move needs action.

It doesn’t.

Doing nothing is a position.

There are periods where trading aggressively makes sense, and there are periods where the smartest decision is to sit on your hands and protect capital. Most losses don’t come from bad analysis. They come from overtrading, boredom, and forcing setups that aren’t there.

Markets move in cycles.
Expansion.
Consolidation.
Distribution.
Reset.

If you’re trying to trade every phase the same way, you’ll get chopped up.

Patience is not passive.
It’s active discipline.

The people who last in this market aren’t the ones who catch every move.
They’re the ones who survive long enough to catch the big ones.

Capital preserved is opportunity preserved.

Crypto doesn’t move when everyone agrees.
It moves when expectations are wrong.

When the crowd is euphoric, upside is limited because most buyers are already in.
When the crowd is exhausted, bored, or angry, that’s when the real opportunities quietly form.

This is why the hardest buys never feel good.
They feel slow.
They feel uncomfortable.
They feel early.

By the time something feels obvious, the easy money is gone and risk is highest.

Learning to read sentiment is just as important as reading charts or fundamentals.
Price is the result.
Belief is the driver.

If you can train yourself to stay rational while everyone else is emotional, you don’t need to predict the future.
You just need to position before consensus flips.

That’s the edge most people never develop.

🇺🇸 ETF FLOWS UPDATE

Last week showed a clear split in flows.

Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs saw net outflows, while SOL and XRP quietly attracted capital.

BTC spot ETFs: outflows of $782M
ETH spot ETFs: outflows of $102.34M

Meanwhile, rotation showed up elsewhere.

$SOL spot ETFs: inflows of $13.14M
$XRP spot ETFs: inflows of $64M

Not massive numbers on the alt side, but direction matters. Capital is getting selective rather than leaving the space entirely. This usually happens when investors reduce exposure to crowded trades and start testing higher beta narratives.

Something to keep an eye on going forward.

🚨 SPOT GOLD PULLS BACK

Gold slipped nearly 1% today, trading around $4,471 per ounce.

After a strong run and recent ATHs, some short-term profit taking is showing up.

All eyes now on whether this move turns into consolidation or just a quick shakeout before the next leg.

$XAU

3 days left until Bitcoin’s yearly candle closes.

Historically, Bitcoin has never closed a post halving year in the red. Not once.

Right now, $BTC is sitting roughly 3% below the yearly open at $93,400. Close, but not there yet.

This is one of those moments where the chart carries way more weight than most people realize. A yearly close back above the open keeps the long term structure clean and intact. A red close would be a first and markets love to test convictions when things look obvious.

Three days is a long time in crypto. A small push is all it takes.

Question is simple.

Does Bitcoin step up and reclaim the yearly open, or do we print the first red post halving year ever?

We’re about to find out.

The last time the total liquidations chart went this quiet, it didn’t stay that way for long.

Liquidity dried up.
Volatility compressed.
Everyone got comfortable.

Then the following Monday, nearly $1B in longs got wiped.

That’s usually how these setups work. Flat liquidation data doesn’t mean safety, it means pressure building. When positioning becomes one sided and the market stops moving, it’s not because risk is gone. It’s because it’s being delayed.

Silence in derivatives is often the calm before forced movement.

Does that guarantee history repeats? No. Markets don’t owe anyone symmetry.

But when leverage piles up during low volatility, the resolution is rarely gentle.

Something to keep in mind going into the week.

Most people think the goal in crypto is to be right.

It’s not.

The real goal is to survive long enough to catch the big moves.

You don’t need to nail every trade. You don’t need to be early on everything. You don’t need to win every week. What you need is staying power.

That means protecting your capital when conditions are bad and pressing harder only when the odds are clearly in your favor.

A few good decisions per cycle can change everything. One bad decision with too much size can erase years of progress.

This market rewards patience more than intelligence and discipline more than aggression.

If you’re still here after multiple cycles, you’re already ahead of most people.

Survival first.
Opportunity second.
Profits come last.

Stay in the game.

Despite a clear slowdown in on-chain activity, the top 10 crypto protocols are still consistently generating over $1M per day in revenue.

That’s an important distinction.

Activity can cool off.
Speculation can fade.
Attention can move elsewhere.

But revenue is harder to fake.

It shows real usage, real demand, and business models that continue to work even when the market isn’t euphoric.

This is exactly what you want to see during quiet or corrective phases. Weak projects lose relevance fast. Strong ones keep printing, just without the noise.

Markets often price narratives, not cash flow. When sentiment is negative, that gap widens, and that’s where mispricing forms.

Sustainable revenue during a slowdown is not a warning sign. It’s proof of resilience.

Over 7 million $BTC , nearly 33% of the total supply, is now sitting below breakeven.

Unrealized losses are pushing toward cycle highs.

This usually doesn’t happen in euphoric environments. It happens when pressure builds, sentiment cracks, and weak hands start questioning their positioning.

Historically, zones like this matter. Not because they guarantee an immediate reversal, but because they mark periods where risk is being transferred from emotional holders to more patient ones.

The longer price holds while losses expand, the more compressed the setup becomes.

Pay attention to behavior, not emotions.

🚨 BIG UPDATE FOR $HYPE

Around 1.2M $HYPE tokens are being unstaked and scheduled for distribution on January 6th.

This is an important short term supply event to keep on the radar. Unstaking does not automatically mean selling, but it does introduce potential volatility, especially if liquidity is thin around that period.

How price reacts after distribution will matter far more than the headline itself. If the market absorbs it smoothly, that’s a sign of strength. If not, expect short term pressure and chop.

Worth monitoring closely going into next week.