The Crypto Minute

⤵️ Today’s Agenda:

• The Crypto Fear & Greed Index FINALLY flipped back to “greed” as $BTC pushed toward a two-month high and signs of retail capitulation started showing up.

• Zcash caught a rare regulatory break after the SEC closed its 2023 probe, easing one of the biggest headline risks hanging over privacy coins.

• A top-500 short squeeze wiped out crowded bearish positioning across perps and futures, with $BTC and $ETH doing most of the damage as the mood turned risk-on.

• Powell’s clash with Trump escalated into a Fed independence crisis narrative, raising the stakes for rates, dollar credibility, and how $BTC trades macro in 2026.

• Scam Sniffer is the kind of boring tool that saves real money. We look at why you should use it.

• And more…

📰 News Recap (Jan 12 to Jan 18)

Fear & Greed FINALLY Flips Back to Greed 🧭

On Thursday, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index printed 61, its first “greed” read since the October wipeout that flushed about $19B of liquidations and sent everyone sprinting out of alts. 😵‍💫 It was 48 just a day earlier.

$BTC helped push the mood. It climbed from about $89,799 to $97,704 over the last 7 days as of writing, tagging a two-month high. 📈 The funny part is $BTC was last above $97K on Nov 14 while the index was still screaming “extreme fear”.

This index is a vibes dashboard, not a prophecy. It blends things like volatility, volume and momentum, Google search interest, and social sentiment. 🧠

Santiment also pointed out that non-empty $BTC wallets dropped by about 47,244 over the week, basically retail tapping out from FUD and impatience. 🫠

They also flagged exchange supply near a seven-month low around 1.18M $BTC, which usually reads as less instant sell pressure. 🏦 Are we back? 🤔

Zcash Gets A Rare SEC W ✅🔒

Zcash ($ZEC) has been on fire in recent months, with an over 800% jump in price and a huge bump in mining activity. 📈 There was still one issue, though… the SEC was not happy about the privacy it provided. 🥲

Now, the Zcash Foundation says the SEC has closed its 2023 investigation and will not pursue enforcement, ending a probe that began after an SEC subpoena in August 2023. 🔍

👉 For $ZEC, that is the big deal. A lot of the “privacy coin” discount is just regulatory overhang, and this removes one major headline risk.

Do not overread it as a blanket blessing for every privacy token, but it does show the SEC can look at a privacy-focused project and still decide to walk away. 🔐

Meanwhile, US lawmakers are still trying to draw clearer lines on who regulates what. 💡

The Senate Banking Committee’s CLARITY Act markup was on the schedule, then got canceled/delayed after pushback, so the rules fight is very much still live. 🏛️

Short Squeeze Tor ch-Wipes Top-500 Crypto Shorts 💥

Bears got squeezed hard. 😄 About $200M in short positions across futures and perps were liquidated on Wednesday, the biggest short-wipe since the early October selloff. 😵

What happened? 🔄 Prices bounced, shorts had to buy back to stop the bleeding, and that buying turned into more upside.

$BTC took the biggest hit with $71M in short liquidations in 24h, then $ETH at $43M, and $DASH with a wild $24M. 🧨

This also lined up with sentiment thawing out fast. 📊 As we already mentioned, fear flipped back to greed for the first time since early October, which is usually when crowded short positioning gets punished. 👀

Geopolitics are in the mix too. Traders are pointing to Fed independence drama and the Maduro capture headline as part of why $BTC is outperforming the dollar, with $BTC up 10.6% YTD versus 0.75% for DXY. 🌍

Alpha Leak 👉 Crypto Index Baskets

The times are changing, bro. Alt season has been weird, so a lot of people are doing the laziest smart thing: buying baskets instead of marrying one ticker. 🧠📦 A crypto index is basically a prebuilt portfolio that tracks a theme or slice of the market, then rebalances over time. 📊

The tradable edge is rotation. 🔄 When a narrative catches a bid, you often see it in the basket before you pick the “right” single coin. If a DeFi or L2 basket moves while $BTC chills, that is a clean signal risk is rotating. 👀⚡

Common Index Plays 👇

• 21Shares Crypto Basket Index ETP, top five crypto basket ETP, issued by 21Shares. 🏛️

• Bitwise 10: top 10 large caps, Bitwise (index funds). 🔟

• Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI): large cap benchmark basket, Nasdaq. 🧾

• S&P Cryptocurrency Indices: broad market and sector style crypto indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices. 📈

• GMCI Indices: broad and thematic crypto indices, GMCI (thematic baskets). 🧺

Just watch what you are actually buying. 🕵️ Some “theme” indexes are basically the same majors with a new label, rebalancing can create funky flows, and fees add up if you trade them like a meme. 💸 

If you want exposure without getting chopped every day, the basket meta is underrated. ✅

💡 Tool for Traders: Scam Sniffer

Most “free money” losses still start with the same thing: a clean looking link that takes you to a fake claim page. One rushed connect, one bad signature, and your wallet is toast. 🪦

Scammers copy real brands perfectly now. Same UI, same docs, same fake support accounts, and URLs that are one letter off. 👀 You might think you’re too clever for this, but with a bit of FOMO, it’s over for you. 🚨

What Scam Sniffer Does?

🛡️ Scam Sniffer is a browser extension that flags known phishing domains and suspicious pages before you connect your wallet. Think of it as a seatbelt for degens who click fast.

How To Use It

• Treat warnings as a hard stop, not a “maybe”. ⚠️

• Still verify the URL manually, especially for claims and airdrops. 🔎

• Use a fresh wallet for anything new, not your main stack. 🧪

• Revoke approvals after sessions so old allowances do not linger. 🧹

Lastly, make sure you download it from the official website.