Past Week In Crypto: $1.42B ETF Inflows, A $98K Bull Trap, And A Fast Reset To $92K

by
Alisa Davidson

Printed: January 20, 2026 at 5:05 am Up to date: January 20, 2026 at 5:05 am

by Ana

Edited and fact-checked:
January 20, 2026 at 5:05 am

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One other week the place Bitcoin tried to cease being boring… after which instantly reminded everybody why chasing energy on this tape is mainly volunteering as liquidity.

On the chart it’s fairly clear: we spent the sooner a part of the week lastly pushing out of that consolidation limbo, received the vertical squeeze, and printed a excessive simply shy of $98K. That’s the “previous highs” zone the market retains treating as a promote wall. As soon as we tagged it, follow-through didn’t present up. Value didn’t immediately collapse both — it did that annoying factor the place it hangs across the prime, chops sideways in a good band across the mid-$95Ks, and offers late longs simply sufficient time to persuade themselves the breakout is “holding.”

Then the rug. Proper round press time: a ruthless leg down, straight by the native vary, again to ~$92.6K on a giant purple candle. That was no a delicate pullback. It reads just like the market discovered most ache: lure anybody shopping for above resistance, stall them out, then sweep the stops and drive the de-risking unexpectedly.

So what had been the undercurrents driving the week’s movement?

First, the ETF stream story stayed supportive on paper — spot Bitcoin ETFs pulling in about $1.42B for the strongest week since early October. In a more healthy market, that form of stream tends to behave like a flooring: dips get purchased quicker, and resistance finally caves. Right here, it seemed extra like “regular bid beneath” whereas everybody else used energy to promote into. The takeaway isn’t that inflows don’t matter; it’s that they’re not a magic wand when the marginal commerce continues to be leverage and short-term profit-taking. Flows can preserve the market from falling aside… and nonetheless fail to push it by a identified ceiling.

Second, US coverage headlines stored injecting that exact form of uncertainty that merchants hate as a result of it’s binary, gradual, and political. The CLARITY Act drama — with studies of the White Home threatening to tug assist after the Coinbase standoff, plus the broader combat over what’s allowed round DeFi, tokenized equities, and stablecoin rewards/yield — doesn’t hit worth as a single “dangerous information candle.” It hits as a volatility tax. It makes individuals faster to fade rallies, faster to take revenue at resistance, and fewer keen to carry threat by the weekend. You would really feel that in how $98K behaved: no one needed to be the hero purchaser right into a coverage headline tape.

Third, the safety angle was loud once more: the $282M social engineering heist (reportedly by way of an attacker impersonating Trezor assist and tricking the sufferer into revealing seed phrase) is the form of headline that doesn’t change Bitcoin’s fundamentals, but it surely completely adjustments conduct on the margins. It reminds everybody that “self-custody” is barely as robust because the person’s operational safety, and that large cash can nonetheless disappear and not using a smart-contract exploit, simply by way of human compromise. Within the brief run, these tales are inclined to push two opposing reactions without delay: some individuals retreat to “safer” publicity (ETFs, regulated rails), whereas others de-risk altogether as a result of it’s a reminder that this ecosystem nonetheless bleeds in ugly methods. Both method, it doesn’t assist threat urge for food for chasing breakouts.

Put it collectively and the week is smart: spot demand confirmed up (ETFs), worth lastly had sufficient gasoline to run stops and check the large $98K space, however the macro/regulatory tone and the market’s behavior of promoting energy turned that run right into a bull lure. As soon as momentum stalled, it didn’t take a lot to knock the construction over — and when it went, it went rapidly.

What issues now could be whether or not this dump is simply “reset the leverage, preserve the upper low intact,” or the beginning of one other leg again into the decrease finish of the vary. Close to-term, the market must reclaim the mid-$93Ks after which the mid-$94Ks rapidly to defuse the breakdown. If it will probably’t, you’re again watching the previous helps: roughly $92K, then the low-$90Ks, and finally that ~$89.5K space that’s been performing because the “low cost sufficient to defend” line on this complete chop regime. Reclaim $95.5K and the lure begins to seem like a shakeout; keep beneath it and it’s simply one other reminder that $98K continues to be the place rallies go to die.

Alisa, a devoted journalist on the MPost, focuses on cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a eager eye for rising traits and applied sciences, she delivers complete protection to tell and interact readers within the ever-evolving panorama of digital finance.

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