2 Key Drivers of a Surprise Year-End Crypto Rally

The cryptocurrency market has suffered a particularly painful fall over the past ten days and has failed to produce the much-anticipated appearance of Santa Claus.

With the year ending in a few days, the chain’s data actually shows that all of this could change in a rather unexpected way.

Do trading volumes mean profits?

The broader end of 2024 was quite spectacular as BTC soared from under $70,000 to over $108,000 in less than two months after the US presidential election. On a micro scale, however, the asset has been struggling over the past ten days, falling from that aforementioned all-time high of $92,000 in days and now sitting at $94,000.

Additionally, trading volumes have been subdued this past week, which is quite expected given the holiday season. This, however, could actually be the propeller of a price hike, according to Santiment data.

The analytics platform indicated that in times of low trading volume, whales play a particularly important role if their accumulation levels continue.

In the last days of 2024, the trading volume has dropped a lot in the crypto sectors. Overall, there was -64% less trading last week compared to the previous week (which included Bitcoin’s all-time high).

The downward trend in trading, especially among speculative sectors… pic.twitter.com/ZTGbED2rak

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 27, 2024

Lately, many big investors have been buying different assets, not just BTC. In fact, “speculative altcoins” are even more susceptible to price gains on such occasions, which could be beneficial for meme coins like DOGE.

On-chain data shared by Ali Martinez indicates that Dogecoin whales used the drop to acquire more of the biggest meme coin in recent days.

The whales bought more than 90 million #Dogecoin $DOGE in the last 48 hours! pic.twitter.com/lGsMtz0iPp

— Ali (@ali_charts) December 27, 2024

Stablecoins on Binance

The other factor is the growing pool of stablecoins on the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance has seen a massive intake of these assets, which are typically deployed to accumulate BTC or altcoins. According to CryptoQuant, the exchange now holds $29 billion in USDT and USDC, which “underscores Binance’s pivotal role in providing liquidity and stability to the market during this phase of explosive growth.”

“Stablecoins like USDT and USDC are critical for traders and institutions as they serve as a bridge between fiat and crypto, while enabling smooth trading during volatile periods,” the report said. He concluded that this particular rise in the two largest stablecoins by market capitalization is a “bullish signal.”

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