Analysis: Gold Plunges on Fed Hawkish Chair Prospects, But Set for Best Month in 46 Years in January

Jan. 30 – Cryptocurrency analyst Axel Adler Jr. stated Wednesday that Bitcoin futures’ “long vs. short liquidation dominance” has hit 97%, with its 30-day moving average climbing to 31.4%. This means nearly all forced liquidations stemmed from long positions, putting buyers under systemic pressure over the past month. Extreme oscillation indicator readings typically align with peaks in forced selling and could trigger short-term stabilization. However, without additional confirming signals, this does not signal a trend reversal. A sustainable “local bottom” would require the indicator to at least fall back to zero or drop below its 30-day moving average. Adler added that despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) price crash and cascading liquidations, its funding rate remains positive — hitting an annualized 43.2% yesterday. While well below October-November peaks of 100%+, this indicates the market still has dominant demand for long exposure. Negative funding rates have only appeared briefly and

Jan. 30 — Precious metals remained popular on the Hyperliquid platform over the past 24 hours, with both gold and silver contracts ranking among the top 10 by volume, per monitoring from HyperInsight. Combined trading volume for the PAXG (gold token) contract and Gold Mapping Contract hit $739 million in the past 24 hours, with total open interest at $197 million. The Silver Mapping Contract saw 24-hour trading volume of $1.796 billion and open interest of $169.5 million. Additionally, the Copper Mapping Contract recorded 24-hour trading volume of $346.8 million and open interest of $144.6 million.

**Crypto Liquidation Update: Jan 30 (Coinglass Data)** After a morning dip in crypto markets, the Liquidation Map shows no significant liquidation pressure at lower price levels if Bitcoin (BTC) continues to decline. - **Bearish Outcome**: If BTC falls below $80k, cumulative long liquidations across major centralized exchanges (CEXs) will hit $615 million. - **Bullish Outcomes**: - If BTC breaks above $85k, cumulative short liquidations on top CEXs reach $778 million. - A rise to $86k pushes liquidation strength to $1.599 billion; at $87k, it climbs to $2.398 billion. **BlockBeats Note**: The liquidation chart does not display the exact number of contracts or precise value of liquidated positions. Instead, its bars represent the relative importance of each liquidation cluster compared to nearby clusters (i.e., "strength"). This means the chart indicates how strongly the target price will react when hitting a specific level. A taller "liquidation bar" signals a mor

On January 30th, per GMGN’s monitoring data, the meme coin BULLA has seen a sudden uptrend since yesterday on the BNB Chain (BSC). Its market cap has surged from a low of ~$31 million to over $100 million, currently sitting at ~$118 million. The token is priced at ~$0.118, up 76% in the past 24 hours, with 24-hour trading volume hitting ~$72 million. BlockBeats notes that meme coin trading is extremely volatile, driven heavily by market sentiment and hype—with no underlying value or real-world use case. Investors are advised to be mindful of the associated risks.

Jan. 30 — Per GMGN market data, Base ecosystem meme coin MOLT has hit a new all-time high with a market cap of $25 million. Its current market cap stands at $23.85 million, marking an 1800% 24-hour gain. X data shows a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen followed the MOLT-linked Moltbook account roughly 20 minutes ago, sparking the surge. MOLT’s market cap jumped 200% from ~$8.5 million to a peak of $25 million. Moltbook (tied to the MOLT token) is an AI agent-dominated social platform—its agents, called Molty or Moltbot, are spun off from the earlier Clawdbot project. Positioned as the “Reddit of AI agents” or “agents’ internet homepage,” the platform lets AI agents autonomously post, comment, like and interact to form a self-governing community, with humans primarily acting as observers. BlockBeats Note: Most meme coins lack practical use cases and face extreme price volatility. Exercise caution to protect your assets and avoid FOMO.

January 30th — Sonu Varghese, Global Macro Strategist at Carson Group, noted that if Federal Reserve Chair nominee Jerome Powell is confirmed, the Fed could ultimately lean somewhat hawkish. Kevin Warsh, meanwhile, has long been a hawk — even as he’s discussed rate cuts recently. If he joins the Fed advocating for steep rate cuts, he may lack credibility to persuade colleagues of the need for additional cuts. That could even lead to a deeply divided committee that essentially refrains from cutting rates at all. In the near term, a potentially hawkish Fed could drive up market volatility.