Spot Gold Hits $4730/Ounce Upwards, Up 1.27% on the Day

January 20th: Per Coinglass data, the crypto market dipped below $91,000 earlier today following a multi-day pullback. Currently, funding rates for mainstream BTC, ETH, and SOL across major CEXs and DEXs have moderated from bearish levels, returning to neutral territory. However, widespread bearish sentiment toward altcoins persists. Specific funding rates for top coins are shown in the attached image. **BlockBeats Note**: A funding rate is a fee mechanism for crypto perpetual contracts, designed to align contract prices with underlying asset values. It facilitates fund transfers between long and short traders—exchanges do not charge this fee directly. The rate adjusts holding costs or profits to keep contracts closely tied to spot prices. **Rate Benchmark**: - 0.01% = baseline - Above 0.01% = bullish bias - Below 0.005% = bearish bias

January 20th – Perpetual DEX (Perp DEX) open interest across platforms has declined over the past 24 hours amid a market downturn, per DefiLlama data. Hyperliquid, which retains the top spot in trading volume, saw its open interest drop by roughly 9% from yesterday. Key 24-hour metrics for major Perp DEXs: - Hyperliquid: ~$63.6B trading volume | ~$45.7B TVL | ~$87.7B open interest - Aster: ~$46.6B trading volume | ~$12.5B TVL | ~$26.1B open interest - Lighter: ~$33.6B trading volume | ~$10.7B TVL | ~$13.3B open interest - EdgeX: ~$28.2B trading volume | ~$4.27B TVL | ~$11.6B open interest - Paradex: ~$27.2B trading volume | ~$2.26B TVL | ~$6.41B open interest - Pacifica: ~$9.22B trading volume | ~$46.54M TVL | ~$82.95M open interest

Jan. 20: AIA surged over 40% in a short span, fueled by news of Binance listing its futures contracts, per market data. The token was last trading at $0.174.

Per official sources, Binance will launch the AIAUSDT perpetual contract on Jan. 20 at 19:15 Beijing time, with up to 20x leverage.

Jan 20 — Per HyperInsight monitoring (via https://t.me/HyperInsight), the "20 Million Bandit Hunter" whale (address 0x880a...) partially closed its SOL short positions twice within ~30 minutes, cutting total short exposure by 17,841.27 SOL (worth ~$2.369M). - At 17:00: Reduced holdings by 9,871.05 SOL (~$1.353M), realizing ~$501K in floating profit. - At 18:00: Further cut 7,970.22 SOL (~$1.016M), with ~$389K in floating profit. Both trades boasted an ROI exceeding 106%. Post-operations, its remaining SOL short position is ~$4.008M. Known for high-frequency, multi-asset arbitrage, the address holds positions for an average of ~20 hours. Since October 2023, it has turned an initial ~$20M into nearly $100M in cumulative profits.

On January 20th, data from HyperInsight (https://t.me/HyperInsight) shows a whale closed a 1004 ETH short position at 17:51, netting a $32,000 profit. The account currently holds a $119,000 floating loss. This address favors 3-10x leverage and has been executing high-frequency trades of LIT and ETH recently.