“Bitcoin reversed Asian session gains, dropping below $88,000 and affecting major altcoins.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
The leading cryptocurrency by market value dropped below $88,000, having peeped above $90,000, CoinDesk data show. Major altcoins included XRP$1.8794ether ETH$2,970.93solana SOL$125.85 and DOGE$0.1255 also retraced their dances. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) pulled back to 2,726, roughly where it was in early Asia before it popped to 2,789.
The decline is consistent with weakness in stock index futures. As of writing, futures tied to Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index traded 0.5% lower on the day, pointing to a cautious start to trading.
BTC and the Nasdaq share a strong positive correlation that becomes more pronounced during Nasdaq downtrends, according to Wintermute.
The pullback led traders to slightly scale back their leveraged bets. Data from Coinglass shows that cumulative open interest in futures listed worldwide declined to around 533,000 BTC from the 540,000 BTC seen earlier today. Open interest had popped from 524,000 BTC as the bitcoin price rose to $90,000.
The cryptocurrency has recently tended to underperform during US hours, according to Laser Digital.
“An interesting trend to take note of has been the distinct underperformance during the US timezone. (both BTC, ETH down 3%+ over US hours [last week] offset by strength during Asian hours) driven most likely by selling pressure coming from the year-end tax harvesting flow as crypto has been a large underperformer among global assets this year,” analysts at Laser Digital wrote in an analysis note Monday.
John Glover, an Elliott wave expert and chief investment officer at crypto lender Ledn, signaled a bullish outlook.
“The Bitcoin price chart looks very promising for higher prices in the future, but less certainty in the near term. I continue to look for the market to trade sideways to slightly lower in the coming weeks/months, and look to add to longs between $71k and $84k,” Glover told CoinDesk in an email.
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While large bitcoin holders accumulate, smaller investors are selling.
- Glassnode data shows the 1,000 to 10,000 BTC whale cohort has supported sustained bitcoin buying over the past few weeks.
- The group has a strong Accumulation Trend Score, near 1.
- Entities holding fewer than 1,000 BTC are net sellers, a pattern consistent with capitulation as the Crypto Fear and Greed Index has remained in “fear” or “extreme fear” for the past month.
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