According to @KobeissiLetter, retail investors net bought $1.8 billion of the S&P 500 ETF SPY in the last session, marking the largest daily purchase since October and the third-largest inflow since the April 2025 market recovery, per @KobeissiLetter. This scale of dip buying indicates elevated risk appetite among individual investors, according to @KobeissiLetter, a setup crypto traders monitor because periods of stronger equity risk-on have historically coincided with higher beta across Bitcoin and Ethereum, as documented by Fidelity Digital Assets and Coin Metrics research.

According to @BullTheoryio, the Russell 2000 reached a new all-time high at 2,700 and is up 9% in the first 21 days of 2026, indicating a rotation into high-risk assets (source: @BullTheoryio). Based on that risk-on signal, crypto traders may watch BTC and altcoins for momentum confirmation and liquidity follow-through across risk assets (source: @BullTheoryio).

According to analyst @rovercrc, the cryptocurrency market has entered 'Phase 2', characterized as a 'RISK ON SEASON'. This assessment is based on the observation that Ethereum (ETH) is currently outperforming Bitcoin (BTC). This outperformance, often tracked via the ETH/BTC trading pair, is interpreted as a key indicator that traders are shifting capital towards higher-risk assets, potentially signaling the beginning of a broader altcoin rally led by Ethereum.