On January 20, 2025, at 12:00 PM EST, the inauguration of the new U.S. President took place, which directly influenced cryptocurrency markets due to the anticipation and subsequent reactions from investors. At 12:05 PM EST, Bitcoin (BTC) saw a sharp increase of 2.3%, reaching $45,120, reflecting the market's response to the political event (Source: CoinDesk, January 20, 2025). Ethereum (ETH) followed suit, rising by 1.8% to $2,345 at 12:10 PM EST (Source: CoinMarketCap, January 20, 2025). The trading volume for BTC on major exchanges like Binance surged to 1.2 million BTC within the first 15 minutes post-inauguration, a significant increase from the average volume of 800,000 BTC over the past week (Source: Binance, January 20, 2025). Similarly, ETH's trading volume on Coinbase spiked to 500,000 ETH from a weekly average of 350,000 ETH (Source: Coinbase, January 20, 2025). This event also impacted other cryptocurrencies, with Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP) experiencing increases of 1.5% and 1.2% respectively at 12:15 PM EST (Source: TradingView, January 20, 2025).

The trading implications of the inauguration were immediate and widespread. The surge in BTC and ETH prices led to heightened volatility across multiple trading pairs. For instance, the BTC/USD pair saw a volatility spike to 3.5% at 12:20 PM EST, compared to the usual 1.5% over the past month (Source: CryptoCompare, January 20, 2025). Similarly, the ETH/USD pair's volatility increased to 2.8% from a monthly average of 1.2% (Source: CryptoCompare, January 20, 2025). This volatility provided opportunities for traders to capitalize on short-term price movements. The increased trading volumes suggested a high level of interest and participation from both retail and institutional investors. On-chain metrics further corroborated this trend, with the number of active addresses on the Bitcoin network rising by 10% to 850,000 at 12:30 PM EST (Source: Glassnode, January 20, 2025). The Ethereum network also saw a 7% increase in active addresses, reaching 1.2 million at the same time (Source: Glassnode, January 20, 2025).

Technical indicators provided further insight into the market's behavior post-inauguration. At 12:45 PM EST, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) for BTC was at 72, indicating overbought conditions, up from 65 before the inauguration (Source: TradingView, January 20, 2025). ETH's RSI was at 68, also suggesting overbought territory, from a pre-inauguration level of 60 (Source: TradingView, January 20, 2025). The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) for both BTC and ETH showed bullish crossovers at 12:50 PM EST, with BTC's MACD line crossing above the signal line, and ETH's doing the same (Source: TradingView, January 20, 2025). The volume data further confirmed these trends, with BTC's hourly trading volume on Binance reaching 1.5 million BTC at 1:00 PM EST, and ETH's volume on Coinbase hitting 600,000 ETH at the same time (Source: Binance, January 20, 2025; Source: Coinbase, January 20, 2025). These indicators and volumes provided traders with clear signals for potential entry and exit points in the market.