“After an active morning Tuesday, bitcoin flattened out in afternoon trading around the $87,500 area, up 2% over the past 24 hours.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
Crypto-related stocks were also seeing bounces after Monday’s plunge, including a 3% gain for Strategy (MSTR) and a 1% advance for Coinbase (COIN).
Read more: Bitcoin bounces from Monday’s worst levels, but sub-$80,000 may come next, analyst says
“Clients are positioned with cautious optimism,” said Josh Barkhoarder, head of sales at FalconX. “In the short term, most expect crypto to remain range-bound until we see a clear catalyst, so they’re holding core bitcoin exposure and sitting on cash elsewhere.”
BTC may benefit from rebalancing, analyst saysWith year-end approaching, bitcoin may benefit from its sluggish performance compared to other asset classes throughout the quarter as asset managers rebalance their portfolios to maintain their mandated allocation, noted Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33.
Earlier this year, when BTC underperformed the S&P 500 index through the first quarter, it started the next with gains, according to Lunde. Conversely, when BTC outperformed equities in the second quarter, it booked declines in the beginning of the third.
So far in the fourth quarter, bitcoin has underperformed the S&P 500 by a whopping 26%, suggesting that a sizable rebalancing is due.
“Fund managers with predetermined BTC allocation targets may adjust weights into year-end, potentially resulting in excess inflows during the final trading days of the year and into early January,” Lunde continued.
Crypto traders hesitantDespite prices stabilizing, market participants remain hesitant to take on new risks, K33’s Lunde added.
Derivatives activity on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) remains near annual lows, with BTC futures open interest hovering around 124,000 BTC, he wrote. On perpetual swap markets, funding rates hovered around the neutral rate with open interest showing little movement, signaling a lack of short-term directional conviction.
Declining spot crypto trading volumes, down 12% through last week, also confirms that many traders remain reluctant to engage as the year is drawing to a close.
- 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 options flow points to expectations for a broad range play rather than a massive surge or crash.
- Bitcoin’s derivatives market shows stability, with strong support at $85,000 and resistance between $95,000 and $100,000.
- Traders are selling put options at $85,000, indicating confidence that bitcoin won’t fall below this level soon.
- Call options are being sold at $100,000.
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