🔺Dominant Asset Rotation System Dominant Asset: 1.🟠 $BTC- SHORT🔴 2.🔵 $ETH - SHORT🔴 System exposure: 100% CASH

## The "Mutually Exclusive Events" of Precious Metals and Cryptocurrencies in 2025: Who Will Be the True Winner? If you're still debating whether to buy silver, take a look at this data to see if it might change your mind. Throughout 2025, gold has risen by 65%, silver has doubled with a 147% increase, and platinum has gained 123%. In contrast, cryptocurrencies? Bitcoin fell by 5.3%, and Ethereum dropped by 11%. This result might be hard for many in the crypto space to accept—once considered high-risk, high-reward assets, crypto assets are now underperforming traditional safe havens. But what this reflects isn't that precious metals have suddenly become the investment Holy Grail, but rather a more interesting phenomenon: **In highly uncertain market environments, capital faces mutually exclusive choices.** ## Why Silver's Rally Looks Like Meme Coins: The Market Is Searching for "Fast Reactors" Let's rewind to mid to late December. In just a few days, silver skyrocketed from $76 to $84, hitting a new high with over a 10% increase. Impressive, right? But even more astonishing was its sharp decline the next day—dropping 9%, almost erasing all gains. This rollercoaster resembles meme coin tactics, but it’s happening in the traditional precious metals market. Why? **First reason: Market size.** Compared to gold, the silver market is smaller with less liquidity. This means a small influx of capital can easily push prices higher. Conversely, when short-term capital starts to withdraw, the decline can be fierce. **Second reason: Narrative support.** Silver isn't just a safe-haven asset like gold; it also has industrial metal properties. It’s a key conductor in solar panels, data centers, electric vehicles, and various electronic components. This gives short-term traders "fundamental reasons" to speculate on silver, beyond mere gambling. **Third reason: Market anxiety.** In late December, the market began reassessing inflation trends, Federal Reserve rate policies, and geopolitical risks. Facing these uncertainties, capital needs to find an asset that "responds quickly to price movements and can rapidly reflect expectations" to gauge market sentiment. Due to its volatility and small market size, silver naturally became the best testing ground. ## The "Mutually Exclusive Paradox" of Precious Metals: Why Can the Dollar and Gold Rise Together? In traditional economic narratives, the dollar and precious metals are often seen as mutually exclusive: when the dollar appreciates, precious metals tend to weaken. But the 2025 market breaks this rule. We observe an interesting phenomenon— the dollar and gold can rise simultaneously. This seems counterintuitive, but the logic is clear: **When markets enter a high-uncertainty state, the dollar and gold no longer oppose each other but play different roles.** The dollar at such times represents liquidity and the safety of a transaction medium, while gold offers a hedge against credit risk. Both can meet different investor needs simultaneously. Therefore, rather than mechanically viewing the dollar index, it’s more important to understand the reasons behind the dollar’s movements—whether driven by risk aversion or rising risk appetite. In the short-term trading horizon, silver may be suppressed by a rebound in the dollar, but from a medium to long-term perspective, as long as the dollar’s appreciation is driven by safe-haven demand rather than economic improvement, precious metals will remain attractive. ## The "Collective Carnival" and Divergence in the Precious Metals Sector: The Mutually Exclusive Logic of Different Metals In this rally, not all precious metals performed equally. Gold’s single-day correction was only 4-5%, much smaller than silver’s 9%, and it didn’t break down across the entire high-range zone. Platinum acted more like a side character following market sentiment, with trading volume and discussion far below silver. This divergence reflects differences in capital structure: **Gold’s buying interest includes a significant portion from medium- and long-term allocations.** These investors don’t change positions due to short-term volatility, allowing gold to stay stable at high levels. **Silver, on the other hand, attracted a large amount of leveraged short-term speculative capital.** In late December, open interest in silver futures kept climbing, indicating short-term trading dominance. When exchanges increased margin requirements, these positions couldn’t be maintained and had to be sold off. **Platinum is purely driven by sentiment.** Its concentrated supply and low inventories make it prone to being caught up in sector rotations, but its actual demand support is weaker than silver’s. ## Will Silver Rise Further? Focus on These Five Key Signals To judge silver’s future trend, technical analysis isn’t very helpful. The real decisive factors are macroeconomic and industry indicators: **Will geopolitical conflicts escalate further?** While silver isn’t purely a safe-haven asset, during geopolitical crises, it’s included in overall precious metals allocations. If conflicts expand, impacting energy and shipping, precious metals will regain attention. Conversely, if tensions stabilize, the high volatility of silver will subside faster than gold. **What is the direction of energy transition and tech policies?** Investments in solar, EVs, and data centers depend heavily on government subsidies and policies. Whether countries continue renewable energy subsidies or accelerate infrastructure investments directly affects silver’s physical demand. As long as policies remain supportive, the market can’t deny silver’s long-term demand. **The industrial strategies of the US and major economies** Sanctions on Chinese tech, investments in semiconductors and computing infrastructure, and supply chain restructuring—all these policies indirectly influence silver demand. Diversified supply chains and repeated investments can amplify demand expectations; conservative policy shifts can cause related themes to fade quickly. **Central bank monetary policy communication** Although silver isn’t a major central bank asset, their stance on inflation and economic risks influences the entire precious metals sector. If central banks signal continued vigilance on inflation, markets will reassess physical assets. Conversely, hawkish or stabilizing signals can lead to adjustments in high-elasticity assets like silver. **Actual industry demand matching expectations** Silver’s recent popularity is largely due to the imagined demand from solar, data centers, and EVs. If actual installations, orders, or expansion plans fall short, market confidence will cool rapidly. Conversely, sustained positive industry signals will prevent silver from becoming purely a short-term speculative asset. ## Should You Enter Now? Asset Allocation vs. Short-term Speculation This is the most practical and difficult question. From a short-term trading perspective, now is probably not the best time to chase silver higher. Capital pushed prices up quickly and then withdrew just as fast, indicating a lack of confidence in the durability of this level. For newcomers, rather than rushing in, it’s better to observe whether the market can gradually stabilize at current levels or continue to fluctuate wildly, shaking out short-term capital. **But from an asset allocation perspective, the logic is entirely different.** As long as silver’s industrial demand isn’t destroyed, the long-term energy transition remains intact, and supply-demand structures aren’t broken, including silver in a medium- to long-term portfolio remains reasonable. The key is to be psychologically prepared—your entry mindset should be "allocation," not "expecting short-term explosive gains." Medium- and long-term allocation and short-term speculation are two entirely different games. If you can’t tolerate 30-50% swings in the short term, silver may not be suitable for you. But if your investment horizon is annual and you view silver as just a small part of your overall asset mix, entering at this level isn’t as risky as it seems. ## What Silver Reveals About the Market: Capital Patience Is Disappearing Looking at silver’s recent movements in the context of the entire financial market, the most insightful aspect isn’t "how much silver has risen," but rather "the level of capital patience." Silver was pushed up quickly and then sharply corrected, indicating that current market capital isn’t unwilling to enter but **unwilling to stay in a single position for long**. Even traditionally more stable precious metals now only attract short-term trading. This suggests the overall market sentiment: high liquidity, assets that can be entered and exited at will, are favored, while long-term allocation is neglected. This logic applies equally to the crypto market. Mainstream coins experience larger fluctuations but rarely trend unilaterally; instead, they oscillate more frequently. Capital no longer stays long on a single narrative but switches rapidly between mainstream coins, stablecoins, and low-volatility tools. Highly speculative sectors tend to be more easily abandoned. **The most valuable lesson from this recent silver movement isn’t the price increase itself, but how it demonstrates the current market’s "patience level" in just a few days.** For investors, whether they can keep pace with this rhythm is more critical than simple bullish or bearish judgments. The market is teaching us a lesson: in an era of high uncertainty, a more pragmatic approach than betting on a single direction is to accept the market’s volatility and seek structural opportunities within the oscillations. Silver is just the beginning of this story.

After the quarterly options settlement, the main betting direction of March out-of-the-money call options among traders Today marks the largest annual options settlement in the cryptocurrency market. According to data from options analysis research, this settlement involves contracts with a total notional value of approximately $28 billion, setting a new record. **Overview of Settlement Scale Data** In Bitcoin, a total of 267,000 BTC options contracts are settled, with a Put/Call ratio of 0.35. The maximum pain point is set at $95,000, with a related notional value of $23.6 billion; Ethereum has 1,280,000 ETH options expiring, with a Put/Call ratio of 0.45. The maximum pain point is at $3,100, with a notional value of $3.71 billion. **Position Allocation Shows a Clear Shift** Over 50% of options are settled today. Notably, the volume and proportion of large options trades before settlement have continued to rise, mainly driven by market participants' repositioning needs. After the settlement dust settles, market focus has shifted to quarterly options expiring in March, which account for over 30% of total holdings, primarily consisting of out-of-the-money call options as the main allocation. **Market Sentiment Reflected in Strategy Choices** The performance of the market in the fourth quarter has been relatively weak, affected by industry cycle fluctuations and slow development progress, leading to a cautious market sentiment. In this environment, seller strategies are relatively more favored, reflecting an increased emphasis among market participants on risk premiums.