The Fear Index is only 26, but the crypto world is playing the most magical game.

While retail investors are still panicking and selling off, BTC has quietly climbed to $92,112, up 1.47% in 24 hours, firmly breaking through the 92,000 mark. This is the truth of the extreme fear market—when emotions hit rock bottom, the true players have already started their布局.

The differentiation among altcoins is so outrageous that it’s eye-opening. STORY surged 25.05%, Monero (XMR) skyrocketed 17.8% to a new high, and these bottom-fishing guys are laughing happily. But on the other hand, POL plummeted 16%, and HYPER dropped 12%, causing friends chasing the high to experience what “free fall” really means. In the same market, some are in heaven, others in hell.

What’s even more exciting is the 24-hour liquidation data—74,000 people wiped out, $164 million evaporated in an instant. Bulls and bears are treated equally; leverage is like a roller coaster blind box—you never know what will happen in the next second.

Interestingly, the institutional side is showing a different style. JPMorgan announced that the “crypto risk-off phase is over,” with ETF capital flows already bottoming out; Goldman Sachs upgraded Coinbase to a “Buy” rating; Bernstein is even optimistic about tokenization entering a super cycle. The footsteps of these investment banks are becoming clearer, and their secret布局 can’t be hidden anymore.

There are also new moves on the regulatory front. The US SEC’s “Innovation Exemption” regulation will take effect in January, providing a 12-24 month compliance buffer for DeFi and stablecoins, which is like a reassuring pill. Turkmenistan has even directly legalized crypto mining and exchange operations, with the central bank issuing licenses and regulating—another “crypto-friendly country” officially上线.

The technical side is also brewing big moves. The Dencun upgrade is in the sprint stage, with the Goerli testnet launching first on January 17, followed by Sepolia and Holesky, with the mainnet expected to land by the end of February. Once EIP-4844 takes effect, transaction fees on L2s will drop significantly, and Arbitrum and Optimism will have already “tied the game.”

Deeper still is the significance of the successful testing of Ethereum’s Verkle tree upgrade—the node storage requirements will decrease dramatically, and the network’s decentralization ability will take another step forward. The subsequent Pectra upgrade will focus on execution layer optimization, making ETH’s lightweight route clearer and clearer.

So this is the current state of the crypto world: on the surface, retail panic and altcoin bloodbaths; underlying, institutional布局, regulatory friendliness, and continuous technological evolution. Whoever can see through this fog will be able to笑到最后 in the next wave of行情.