The recent Bitcoin rally may be driven by real spot demand on Coinbase. Data indicating elevated spot activity on Coinbase suggests that this move higher is bolstered by direct purchases rather than leveraged positioning in derivatives markets. This distinction matters because Spot buying reflects a real capital commitment, not a temporary bet. Why Risk Management When Demand Is Structural The Bitcoin rally since Sunday’s Powell subpoena news has been largely linked to Coinbase spot buyers. Crypto trader Alex Krüger has highlighted on X that both the Adjusted Coinbase Premium and Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) show steady spot accumulation, which is exactly why this has been a true hated rally even among bitcoiners. For over a month, the dominant narrative in every crypto chat room has been that BTC is lagging while equities and commodities are moving upward. Related Reading: Analyst Outlines The Bulllish And Bearish Scenarios For Bitcoin – Here’s What To Know However, the fun fact is that equities are not accurate, but 40% of the S&P 500 (Standard & Poor’s 500) stocks have actually closed red in 2025, (39.2% to be precise). Perception is doing a lot of work here, and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) move on Powell represented a major macro litmus test for BTC. Kruger claims that the BTC long-term value proposition is about protecting against the tail risk of central bank profligacy. On Monday, BTC surged upward, although the move was just a little surge. According to Krüger, the BTC key battlefield remains the 50-week moving average (WMA), which is currently around $101,420. Meanwhile, the trader is looking to take some profits into short liquidations right above the $100,000 mark. Why Bitcoin Benefits First From Institutional Flows The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is set for markup today, January 15th, 2026, in the Senate Banking Committee. According to the update by BTC_road_to200k on X (Formally Twitter), this is where the lawmakers will debate and shape the final version of the bill before it moves forward. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Stays Pinned Above Support, Setting Up a Bigger Move This matters because the art aims to clear up the ongoing regulatory uncertainty between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which has been a major source of hesitation for large institutional players looking to move into Bitcoin and other digital assets. Furthermore, the Clarity Act will be a turning point as it aims to clear rules that will bring more confidence to banks, pension funds, and large investors, which often translates into higher demand and stronger price momentum for BTC. As the regulatory clouds lift, the market might start experiencing a renewed wave of institutional money flowing in, and that’s obviously bullish for BTC. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
Crypto markets are confronting a fast-moving repricing of US monetary policy expectations, and macro trader Alex Krüger argues that even after last week’s sharp dovish turn, futures curves still fail to discount what a Trump-aligned Federal Reserve leadership could look like. Fed Cut Mispricing Sets Up Crypto Repricing Event In a post on X, Krüger shared a CME-derived table of implied policy rates for late-stage 2026 and framed it as the market’s baseline for the post-Powell transition. The table shows an expected fed funds rate of 3.47% for the April 29, 2026 FOMC meeting (347 bps), drifting to 3.29% for June 17, 2026 (329 bps), to 3.10% for September 16, 2026 (310 bps), and to 2.99% for December 9, 2026 (299 bps). In other words, the curve prices roughly 48 basis points of easing between late April and early December 2026 about two quarter-point cuts across that span—implying a relatively gradual descent toward just under 3%. Krüger’s core claim is that this path is inconsistent with the policy preferences he associates with the Trump camp, and therefore inconsistent with an “ultra dovish” chair appointment. He situates the April 2026 meeting as the last one under Jerome Powell’s chairmanship, whose four-year term ends in mid-May 2026, and then treats the June 2026 meeting as the first under a new chair. Related Reading: Crypto Crash Is A Forced Crypto Seller Unwind, Glassnode Co-Founders Claim Against that transition, Krüger points to Fed Governor Stephen Miran—whom he casts as a proxy for Trump-world monetary instincts—as advocating a much faster return to neutral. In Krüger’s telling, Miran has argued that the “appropriate fed funds rate” is “roughly 2% to 2.5%,” has linked this year’s tighter stance to a rise in the neutral rate, and has characterized his divergence from colleagues as centered on “speed of cuts,” not destination. Krüger also highlights Miran’s preference for “50 bps cuts” over 25-bp steps as the way to get policy back to neutral. On Krüger’s arithmetic, a futures curve that delivers only about 50 bps of easing from the first post-Powell meeting in June 2026 through December 2026 is not a curve that has truly priced a Trump-era chair willing to front-load larger moves. Related Reading: Crypto Funds Face Third Consecutive Weekly Losses, Totaling $3 Billion In Outflows Put simply, he sees the market as still anchored to a Powell-style glide path, even while political risk is skewing toward more abrupt easing. “The Trump camp wants faster and bigger cuts, many of them. The Fed only cutting 50bps between the new Fed Chair’s FOMC in June and December 2026 falls short. That’s why I sustain an ultra dovish Fed Chair appointed by Trump is not priced in,” Krüger concludes. December Rate Cut Seems Likely The timing of Krüger’s warning matters because the front end has already undergone a dramatic swing. Last week, traders sharply increased the probability of another cut at the Fed’s December meeting after New York Fed President John Williams said rates could fall “in the near term,” a remark that pushed implied odds of a quarter-point December move into the mid-70% range on CME FedWatch, up from roughly 40% the day before. In parallel, Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius reiterated a baseline in which the Fed cuts in December, then again in March and June 2026, taking the policy band down to roughly 3.00%–3.25%.” We expect another Fed cut in December, followed by two more moves in March and June 2026 that take the funds rate to 3-3.25%,” said Hatzius. GOLDMAN SEES DOWNSIDE RISKS FOR ECONOMY NEXT YEAR Goldman Sachs economists expect the Fed to cut rates in December, followed by a few more cuts in 2025, bringing rates just above 3%. Chief economist Jan Hatzius warns the economy could slow more than expected, requiring… — *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) November 24, 2025 His path is modestly more dovish than what the curve had discounted earlier in the month, but it still resembles the gradualism embedded in Krüger’s CME table: sequential 25-bp steps, aiming for an early-2026 rate around the low-3% area rather than a rapid drop toward the low-2s. For the crypto markets, the dispute is less about whether cuts are coming than about the speed and terminal rate. Crypto is structurally levered to shifts in dollar liquidity and real-rate expectations; what Krüger is flagging is a scenario where the curve’s “destination” and, especially, its pacing remain too conservative relative to a potential political reorientation of the Fed. If traders are right that the Williams-sparked repricing is the beginning of a slower, data-dependent easing cycle, then current crypto asset valuations already incorporate the relevant macro impulse. If Krüger is right, the curve is still missing a regime change in reaction function—one in which larger front-loaded cuts compress cash yields faster than expected, steepen risk-on positioning, and force another round of cross-asset duration and liquidity repricing. That gap between a Powell-era slope and a Trump-era shock path is what he means when he says an ultra-dovish chair “is not priced in” for crypto markets. At press time, the total crypto market cap was at $2.92 trillion. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Renowned macro analyst Alex Krüger posits that Bitcoin is “highly likely” in a supercycle. Krüger articulated his perspective via X, emphasizing the distinct trajectory Bitcoin is currently undertaking compared to previous market cycles. A Bitcoin supercycle is a theoretical phase wherein Bitcoin’s price is anticipated to ascend extraordinarily, surpassing its traditional boom-and-bust cycles. This concept implies a prolonged period of growth fueled by increased mainstream adoption, leading to a significantly stronger and more enduring upward trajectory than the typical four-year halving cycle that Bitcoin historically follows. Is Bitcoin In A Supercycle? With regard to President-elect Donald Trump‘s pro-Bitcoin U-turn and his plan to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, Krüger remarked: “Do yourself a favor and stop comparing this cycle to prior cycles. Bitcoin is highly likely in a supercycle. The crypto industry has just experienced its most dramatic change in history, a fundamentally driven 180 degree turn,” the analyst stated. Related Reading: Bitcoin Nears $100,000: Market Expert Predicts $200K Surge Amid Retail FOMO And Volatility Krüger also referred to the rapid evolution of the Bitcoin and crypto sector, noting that it transitioned “from a barely legal pariah detested by the state, to one of the top industries embraced by the state” within weeks—a change he describes as “so extreme it’s hard to find comparables in modern times.” Drawing parallels to historical financial shifts, Krüger highlighted the transformative impact of the 1970s on gold. “Maybe gold in the 1970s is one. The 1970s was a transformative decade for gold. Nixon’s ending of the Gold Standard in 1971, dismantling Bretton Woods, sent gold surging from $35 per ounce to $850 in 1981,” he explained. Krüger also addressed the timing of Bitcoin’s potential peak, suggesting that expecting a major local top around March is reasonable based on his previous analyses. “This would be heavily dependent on the slope of ascent, funding rates, and the broader economy. But one should not equate a major local top with the beginning of the bear market,” he noted. While acknowledging the possibility of a bear market, he emphasized that “the conditions for it are not yet there. It’s also too soon to be expecting a top. Bitcoin bull-runs always last for many months. It’s only been 33 days since Trump unleashed the Kraken.” Related Reading: Bitcoin Rally To Continue If This Level Holds, Is $110,000 The Next Stop? Highlighting the precarious nature of market sentiment, Krüger added a cautionary note: “The moment you all finally believe what I just wrote, then it will [be] the top.” With this statement Krüger underscores the psychological factors that often influences market dynamics, particularly the collective belief in market peaks. X user Paradox Parrot (@Paradoxparrot) commented on Krüger’s assertion, stating, “Agree. But, ‘this time is different’ is a good way to round trip back down.” In response, Krüger acknowledged the cyclical skepticism surrounding altcoins, asserting, “Sure. Alts will round trip most of it. It’s the nature of the beast. Mind this time has already been proven different multiple times at many levels. I’ve anticipated and covered that here in detail since mid 2023. Btw alts round trip for 2 reasons. A) lack of fundamentally driven demand. And more importantly B) illiquidity (that’s also why they go up in such a vertical manner).” Despite Krüger’s optimistic outlook, not all experts concur with the supercycle hypothesis. Chris Burnsike, partner at Placeholder VC, offered a contrasting view on X on December 7: “Bookmark it for later: a supercycle is never real – everything is cyclical, though cycles can vary. […] Buying into the idea of a supercycle is how you never sell and roundtrip. Ask anyone who never sold in 2021.” At press time, BTC traded at $98,287. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com