What happened today? 13 Jan 26'
Our daily market review
This is the daily review. Where the author writes from curiosity to curious people. View this as a thought exercise with real time information that can have a direct impact on prices, industries and individual wealth!
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Today was the day for crypto assets. Bitcoin outperformed everything, delivering a 5% daily gain and trading above $95 thousand dollars per BTC. This surge liquidated over 1 thousand BTC’s of short positions, highlighting the significant volume of short sellers still betting against this asset.
We sensed this sentiment shift yesterday, characterized by higher lows and anticipation for the ETF numbers. As suspected, ETFs turned to positive inflows yesterday, and I expect today to follow the same scenario, potentially with even better results.
Geopolitical tension keeps escalation. Trump has canceled all meetings with Iranian officials, announcing that the world will find out when the US takes action. While the saying goes that “a barking dog seldom bites,” Trump’s history with Venezuela he act quietly. But oil prices movement are currently pricing in this risk. Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in Iran is dire; thousands of protestors are dying on the streets, and the internet has been blocked to prevent information from escaping. Fortunately, Starlink is now stepping in to provide connectivity, ensuring information flows despite the restrictions.
On the economic front, today provided positive inflation data, with core inflation at 2.6% beating expectations. This prompted Trump to criticize Powell again—calling it “too late”—as he wants interest rates down when economic data is positive. Despite this pressure, Jerome Powell received significant backing today. A number of central banks announced their support for FED independence, a notable move given that institutions like the European Central Bank have historically lagged in maintaining strict neutrality.
Returning to market performance, the “green” wasn’t limited to Bitcoin. Ethereum and Solana actually outperformed BTC today, with other crypto tokens printing double-digit gains. While this looks promising, we must wait to see if it is sustainable, especially since crypto-native investors like Qiao do not see tokens as attractive just yet.
Shifting focus to traditional finance, we started the day with JPMorgan earnings. While they beat EPS expectations with a 40% increase in trading revenue, investment banking fees dropped 5%. This is a major red flag that sent JPM stock down over 4%. This decline suggests that stablecoin and crypto growth may be killing traditional investment banking fee opportunities; if true, this could unlock a major catalyst for crypto-DeFi.
Energy also dominates the headlines. NASA announced a partnership with the Department of Energy to develop a lunar nuclear reactor by 2030, but the immediate focus is on data centers. In Virginia, massive centers for Google and Amazon are being powered by Dominion Energy, which controls 75% of the local market. The electricity contracts for these centers are more than doubled total current Dominion energy supply—enough to power at least 10 million homes—placing pressure on household utility bills. Trump aims to address this, but the big winner could be Dominion Energy. Trading at $59 a share with a PE of 20, this utility company stands to benefit from rising electricity prices, the scale of solar energy —renewable energy— and the rotation from growth to value stocks. This rotation is notable as CDS markets for tech companies hit new highs on volume, trading over $8b in December 2025, signaling that traders are hedging downside risk against a potential bubble burst.
Institutional adoption of crypto continues to accelerate. Franklin Templeton has converted two of their money market funds into a stablecoin vehicle, now offering onchain shares. The sector is expanding rapidly:
Tokenized funds: The number of investors is at an ATH of 75.6k.
Tokenized stocks: These are exploding onchain with record volume of $800m per month. Increasing liquidity by consequent.
Volume: Jupiter is seeing over $200m in monthly volume for these assets, and Kobeissi is apparently bullish on Jupiter.
Remarkably, all of this is occurring without a formal market structure bill.
In other niche sectors, the story continues. For privacy, XMR keeps ripping, while ZEC is lagging due to the ECC problem, though it could stage a comeback. YZi Labs announced a genius trading terminal promoting privacy-focused tools, and the Zama privacy protocol is set to ICO at a $55m FDV. Elsewhere, EthGas launched GWEI, and Polymarket went live on the Golden Globes, correctly predicting 26 out of 28 winners.
Last but not least, Claude’s cowork product is dominating social media. I will conduct deeper research on it, but apparently, this AI cowork assistant enables ultimate productivity. It allows the AI to access folders on a laptop, create files, and perform tasks inside the computer, including searching on Chrome if required.