“QCP notes participation has collapsed while Polymarket sees a shallow easing path, putting the focus on guidance and cross central bank signals.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
Bitcoin is hovering around 90k after a weekend of sharp but short-lived swings that exposed how thin year-end liquidity has become.
In a recent note, QCP writes that perp open interest in both BTC and ETH has dropped by nearly half since October, which means the market’s ability to absorb directional trades is much weaker.
Meanwhile, Polymarket odds show traders have already priced this week’s 25 bp cut and lean towards a January pause, signaling that investors expect a shallow easing path rather than a cycle.
The combination explains why BTC remains range-bound, because of a lack of market activity, and why outsized moves are more likely to come from guidance surprises than from the rate decision itself.
“The Fed’s rate cut may be the headline, but the more important shift is the widening gap in policy signals across major central banks. The BOE is divided, the ECB is holding firm, and the BOJ is preparing to tighten at yield levels last seen in 2007, all against a backdrop of rising friction across key Asian economies,” Gracie Lin, CEO of OKX Singapore told CoinDesk in an interview.
Lin added that the recent clearing of leveraged positions has improved market structure by removing overcrowded trades, giving prices room to move without forced flows. With that reset, she said bitcoin was able to push back towards 91k as global capital adjusts to an uneven set of macro signals.
All of this sets the stage for a market where direction will hinge on how traders interpret the Fed’s guidance and the broader policy split rather than the rate move that everyone has already priced in.
Market Movement:BTC: Bitcoin slipped toward $90,000 on Monday after early US trading erased a brief weekend bounce, leaving the market stuck in a narrow range as rising bond yields and softer equities pressured risk assets.
ETH: Ether edged slightly lower alongside the broader market, but continued to outperform on a relative basis and briefly touched its strongest level against bitcoin in more than a month.
Golden: Gold dipped slightly on Monday as traders remained cautious ahead of the Fed’s policy meeting, with markets pricing a high likelihood of a rate cut and waiting for Powell’s guidance on future moves.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific stocks slipped on Tuesday, tracking Wall Street’s decline as investors remained cautious ahead of a widely expected 25 bp Fed rate cut and awaited guidance on the central bank’s next steps.
Elsewhere in Crypto:
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- Ondo Finance Says Biden-Era SEC Investigation Closed With No Charges (Decrypt)
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence’s Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025, with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch, the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B, while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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BTC’s relative weakness compared to stocks points to tepid spot demand, making the largest crypto vulnerable to macro volatility, Bitfinex analysts said.
- Bitcoin erased very modest overnight gains early Monday and spent the rest of the US session in a tight range around the $90,000 level.
- Rising long bond yields and a small US equities pulling back weighed on risk appetite as traders eye this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
- Bitfinex analysts pointed out bitcoin’s relative weakness against US stocks amid modest spot demand and structural softness.
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