☕ Evening Bitcoin Brief — “$95K With a Pulse — And It’s Not Faking It”
Liquidity Returns, ETFs Load Up, and Bitcoin Starts Acting Like Bitcoin Again
🧾 Bottom Line
Bitcoin right now feels like that Kevin Hart moment where the joke lands, he pauses, looks around, and says:
“Oh… y’all felt that?”
Yes. The market felt that.
$100K isn’t guaranteed — but it’s no longer a punchline.
It’s standing in the hallway, knocking politely, waiting to see if liquidity opens the door.
Stay sharp. Stay humble. And don’t front-run resistance like it owes you money.
🧠 Quote of the Day
“Bitcoin doesn’t need hype.
It just needs liquidity — and time.” - The Inspirator
Bitcoin woke up confident, inflation showed up calm, and institutions came back outside like, “My bad, I was just checking something.”
Let’s get into today’s setup.
🚀 Bitcoin Price Action: From “Dead Cat?” to “Nah, This Thing Got Hands”
Bitcoin pushed above $95,000 and — more importantly — held it; for a second. That matters. In crypto, holding a level is the difference between “breakout” and “my bad, bro.”
BTC tagged ~$96,500 on multiple exchanges
Up ~3.8% on the day, ~6.5% over 30 days
Price action suggests a short squeeze is underway
Translation: bears are sprinting for exits like an NFL running back looking for the end zone.
Still, bulls aren’t totally out of the woods. BTC needs to cleanly reclaim $96K–$98Kbefore the market starts casually saying “$100K” without whispering. I repeat “cleanly reclaim $96K-$98K (so keep slowly stacking)
🧠 Macro Check: Inflation Behaved, Liquidity Exhaled
December CPI came in cool enough to ease bond yields, and markets reacted exactly how history says they do:
Risk assets up
Liquidity loosening
Bitcoin said, “Say less.”
Zoom out:
U.S. M2 money supply expanded by $1.65T in 2025
Financial conditions are easing, not tightening
Post–year-end rebalancing is pulling institutions back into BTC
This isn’t hopium. This is macro oxygen returning to the room.
🏦 ETFs & Institutions: Boomers Aren’t Trading — They’re Locking It Up
U.S. spot demand looks sleepy (Coinbase premium still negative), but ETFs are doing all the heavy lifting:
$750M in net inflows — strongest day since October
ETF assets now exceed $120B
Important nuance:
Boomers aren’t day-trading Bitcoin.
They’re allocating, custodying, and forgetting passwords.
Bitwise says 99% of advisors now recommend crypto exposure. That’s not FOMO — that’s career-risk management. Did you seriously HEAR that? Read it again.
🏢 Corporate Treasuries: The Real Supply Shock
Corporate treasuries added ~260,000 BTC in six months — 3x more than miners produced.
Strategy still dominates (~60% of corporate BTC)
Treasury demand is quietly outpacing supply
This isn’t narrative-driven bullishness.
This is math doing math things.
…and you are doing what exactly? (Y’all not listening are ya?)
⚖️ Regulation Watch: Market Structure ≠ Fast Structure
Washington hit peak deadline chaos:
137 last-minute amendments dropped into the Digital Asset Market Structure Act
Law may pass, but rulemaking will take years
Paradigm execs are already saying: “Don’t expect speed.”
Meanwhile, Bitcoin advocates are pressing lawmakers on stablecoin tax rules, warning Congress not to half-fix payments while ignoring BTC itself.
Translation: clarity is coming — just not on crypto Twitter’s schedule. (Remember what I had said?)
BREAKING: Ripple scored preliminary EMI approval in Luxembourg, stacking EU regulatory wins while everyone else is still arguing about “market structure.” Translation: Ripple is quietly building regulated payment rails while the rest of crypto debates hypotheticals.
Why it matters: This clears a real path for institutions to move money — not just trade tokens — inside the EU. It reinforces a growing trend where adoption isn’t being blocked by regulation anymore, but by plumbing. For the broader crypto market, this signals that regulated crypto payments are moving from theory to execution, especially outside the U.S.
🔄 Ethereum & Altcoins: Don’t Sleep, Just Nap Lightly
Ethereum quietly had a strong fundamentals year:
Lower fees
More active addresses
Improved network reliability
ETH pushed above $3,300, and analysts are already circling 2026 as a potential ETH rotation year.
Altcoins followed risk-on vibes:
ADA +8%
XLM +9%
SOL popped alongside BTC
But let’s be honest:
This is still a Bitcoin-led market.
Alts are riding shotgun, not driving.
💳 Payments & Plumbing: The Unsexy Stuff That Actually Matters
Two developments worth paying attention to:
Visa + BVNK partnering to enable stablecoin payments directly to wallets
XRP proponents argue institutional barriers are now plumbing, not regulation
You don’t have to love XRP to understand the point:
Adoption doesn’t fail because of ideology — it fails because systems don’t talk to each other.
Payments rails are finally being built.
🎯 The Setup Going Forward
Bullish tailwinds
Liquidity easing
ETF accumulation
Corporate supply absorption
Technical follow-through above $95K
Things to watch
Reclaiming and holding $96K–$98K
ETF inflows staying consistent
U.S. spot demand waking up
Volatility from short squeezes (they cut both ways)
❓ Question of the Day
If Bitcoin clears $100K this month,
what’s the next psychological ceiling the market actually respects — $120K or $150K?
$95K isn’t a celebration point, it’s a validation zone.
What matters is structure: spot-driven demand, shallow pullbacks, and sellers getting absorbed without drama. That’s not hype, that’s capital rotating with intent.
If this level holds without leverage excess, $95K stops being resistance and starts becoming history. Quiet consolidation here is the most bullish outcome.
Bitcoin looks less speculative and more permanent by the week.