U.S. CPI: +2.9% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +2.9%); U.S. CORE CPI: +3.2% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.3%)

On January 4, the Financial Times reported that amid the Trump administration’s embrace of digital assets, PwC—one of the “Big Four” accounting firms—has decided to ramp up its investment in the space after taking a cautious stance on cryptocurrency for years. Paul Griggs, PwC’s U.S. leader, said in an interview the strategic shift happened last year, driven by two key developments: the U.S. appointing pro-crypto regulators and Congress passing new legislation to regulate digital assets like stablecoins. “Between the Genius Act and stablecoin regulatory guidelines, I believe market confidence in this product and asset class will grow,” Griggs noted. “Asset tokenization will also keep evolving inevitably, and PwC needs to be part of this ecosystem.” His comments underscore that a series of Trump administration crypto policy moves have finally persuaded blue-chip firms they can actually enter the long-shunned digital asset market.

As of January 4, Coinglass data shows total positions liquidated across all crypto exchanges over the past 24 hours hit $191 million. Long positions accounted for $33.14 million of the liquidations, while short positions made up $158 million.

**January 4th Update** Per data from Coinbob Popular Address Monitor (https://t.me/Coinbob_track_CN), a whale labeled "pension-usdt.eth" transferred $30 million to a Hyperliquid contract account before opening a 3x-leveraged ETH short position. As of press time, the position size has reached $53 million, with an average entry price of $3,137 and a liquidation price of $4,814—*and the position is still being expanded*. The address previously closed out a large ETH short position to exit the market; based on its holding trend over the past few months, this position could still grow beyond $80 million. --- **Profit & Activity Breakdown** Monitoring shows the whale has netted up to ~$1 million in profits from swing trading on Hyperliquid over the past 30 days. Its strategy focuses on low leverage and short holding periods (average ~23 hours), with primary focus on BTC and ETH. Cumulative profits since October exceed $21 million. Recently, the address has been redirecting

Jan. 4 — Farside monitoring data shows U.S. Ethereum spot ETFs recorded total net inflows of $160.8 million this week.

On January 4th, 0xPickleCati—holder of the top spot on Binance’s Contract Real Profit Leaderboard—took to social media to say: “While the community is widely buzzing about Binance Life’s surge today, my positions are still underwater. I’m no longer holding out for a break-even; I’m treating this as a lesson learned.” Per real-time position data, the trader’s total profits exceed $47.21 million. Currently, they hold 4x leveraged short positions on BTC (with an unrealized gain of 2.37 BTC) and 5x leveraged short positions on ETH (with an unrealized gain of 105.54 ETH).