Bitcoin’s volatile end of the week resulted in a price drop toward $91,000 and a subsequent surge to $96,000 before the asset calmed roughly in the middle.

The altcoins continue to struggle as SOL, ADA, and AVAX have charted 4% daily declines.

BTC Calms at $94K

It was nothing short of a volatile rollercoaster of a week for the primary cryptocurrency. It all started quite promising after the most recent MicroStrategy purchase on Monday, as the asset flew past $100,000 for the first time this year and kept climbing on Tuesday morning to over $102,000.

However, that’s when the landscape changed, and BTC slumped hard later that day, and on Wednesday, it slumped to $96,000. Although that was a painful correction on its own, bitcoin kept plunging in the following days to $91,200 (on Bitstamp) on Thursday, which became its lowest price tag in over a month.

The bulls managed to intervene at this point and pushed BTC north. More volatility ensued with several big moves that eventually pushed the asset to $96,000. However, it failed there and has lost almost two grand since then to trade at $94,000 as of now.

Its market cap has risen to just under $1.870 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts is up to 54.5%.

ADA, SOL Struggle

Most altcoins are in the red today as well. Ethereum slipped below $3,200 on Thursday, and even though it managed to recover some ground since that low is close to breaking below it now after a 2.3% daily decline. XRP is among the few alts with minor gains today.

In contrast, SOL, ADA, SUI, AVAX, and LINK continue to lose value, with losses of up to 4%. SOL is well below $190 now, while ADA is just over $0.9. More painful losses come from OM, ICP, and RNDR from the larger cap alts.

The total crypto market cap has lost some steam since yesterday and is down to $3.43 trillion on CG.

TL:DR;

• Crypto markets went through a more volatile end of the week, but larger investors seem unfazed as they keep accumulating two of the biggest tokens by market cap.
• The question now is whether XRP and DOGE will rebound swiftly, given the massive purchases completed by the so-called whales.

It was a rollercoaster of a week for the entire crypto market, with BTC surging past $102,000 at the start of it only to dump by more than ten grand within two days to a multi-week low.

The altcoins followed suit, as DOGE, for example, stood close to $0.4 at one point this week but then plunged toward $0.31, representing a 22% retracement.

XRP went above $2.5 briefly on January 4 and to $2.47 on January 7, but the market-wide correction pushed it to a low of $2.2 on January 9 before it calmed to around $2.33 in the past 24 hours.

Such enhanced fluctuations tend to scare off certain investors, especially retail, but that has not been the case with whales. Data from Santiment, shared by Ali Martinez, show that XRP and DOGE whales went on an accumulation spree amid this market uncertainty.

Those holding the largest meme coin by market cap increased their stash by adding more than 470 million DOGE in 48 hours alone. In USD terms, this would put the total accumulation at about $150 million, with an average price of $0.33 per token.

The XRP case is even more bullish as whales purchased more than a billion tokens within the same timeframe. An average price of around $2.3 puts this two-day acquisition at $2.3 billion.

Whales bought roughly 1 billion $XRP in the last 48 hours! pic.twitter.com/XUlibpXkz5

— Ali (@ali_charts) January 10, 2025

It’s worth noting that both assets reacted to this market-wide crash in a less painful manner compared to the previous one at the end of 2024, when BTC slumped toward $91,000 once again.

Back then, XRP tumbled hard, slipping below $2 on a couple of occasions. So far, during this correction, the token’s low was 10% higher at $2.2, perhaps assisted by the aforementioned large purchases.

DOGE’s scenario was similar as it plummeted to just over $0.26 on December 30, while its bottom now came at over $0.31.

Consequently, it’s safe to say that the whale accumulations helped both assets during the crash, and they could have an even greater effect if they continue and the market rebounds in the next few days.

The year 2024 saw the Bitcoin mining industry record significant developments and historic milestones. According to a report by the Bitcoin mining entities NiceHash and Digital Mining, 2024 was a record-breaking year for the promising industry.

NiceHash and Digital Mining revealed that in 2024, the mining industry witnessed high block space demand, increased hashrate, and new trends in mining machine models. Large mining companies also expanded via mergers and acquisitions, enhancing their output and efficiency.

Mining Developments in 2024

In 2024, the Bitcoin network started at block 823,807 and ended at block 877,270 after producing 53,463 blocks with an average block time of 9 minutes and 83 seconds. By the fourth Bitcoin halving, which slashed miner rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 per block, around 93.75% of all Bitcoin had been mined.

The Bitcoin miner ViaBTC produced the halving block, which recorded the highest fees seen since May 2021: 37.626 BTC in transaction fees. Over a month before the halving, Marathon Digital mined the largest-ever Bitcoin block, measuring 3,990.36 kilobytes. Notably, the first 100 blocks after the last halving averaged 11.19 BTC in fees.

Although the halving turned 2024 into a challenging year for miners, these entities still added a record amount of hashrate to the Bitcoin network. The year started with a hashrate of 515 EH/s and ended with 807 EH/s after reaching an all-time high of 808 EH/s. This represented a hashrate growth of 56.7% or 292 EH/s.

Furthermore, the halving event caused the Bitcoin hashprice to tumble to record lows, while the network saw 26 difficulty adjustments.

Predictions for 2025

The United States maintained its dominant position among the leading regions in the mining industry. However, NiceHash and Digital Mining found that Africa and South America are emerging regions as miners leverage their underutilized energy resources.

Also, there was a notable shift among Bitcoin miners, with many pivoting toward a bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy. Several miners did not just decide to hold the coins they produced but also took steps to raise capital to make additional purchases.

Additionally, miners expanded their capacities by upgrading their mining machines, pursuing strategic acquisitions, and raking in new capital through various means, including initial public offerings. In fact, the market cap of publicly traded mining stocks exceeded $50 billion for the first time.

Interestingly, the halving event led to lower BTC production in 2024, but a higher BTC price helped ease the impact of the reduced output.

Meanwhile, NiceHash and Digital Mining outlined several predictions for the mining industry in 2025, including broader adoption of the bitcoin treasury strategy, heightened profitability for miners, and network hashrate surpassing 1 zetahash.