Bitcoin surged to $90,000 earlier today, bolstered by fresh macro catalysts, but failed to sustain the breakout as demand tapered off at key resistance levels.
The rejection saw price action reverse sharply, pulling Bitcoin back toward the lower bounds of its established weekly range.
By press time, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization had surrendered its intraday gains, slipping approximately 1% to settle near $3.08 trillion.
Market sentiment remains fragile, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index stagnant in the “Extreme Fear” zone at a reading of 25.
This reflects persistent hesitation among both retail and institutional participants as the market struggles to find a firm floor.
Altcoins largely mirrored this downward momentum; while a few select tokens managed modest 24-hour gains, the vast majority of the market traded in the red.
Why is Bitcoin price down today?
Bitcoin price attempted a break past the $90,000 earlier today, peaking as high as $90,200 in Singapore trading sessions.
This initial climb was driven by deteriorating geopolitical conditions between Russia and Ukraine, which acted as a primary catalyst after a weekend of renewed attacks and stalled peace negotiations.
Over the weekend and into early Monday, news of fresh attacks and stalled peace talks rattled global markets.
With oil prices jumping more than 2% on supply fears, traders scrambled for a hedge.
In that moment of uncertainty, Bitcoin lived up to its “digital gold” reputation, attracting a wave of safe-haven buying that pushed it over the $90k mark.
Technically, this geopolitical surge pushed Bitcoin into a high-density “liquidity magnet” visible on the 24-hour liquidation heatmap.
As the price breached $90,000, it triggered approximately $918 million in short-liquidation intensity, providing the forced buying momentum required to briefly clear the psychological barrier.
However, once that cluster was cleared, the rally hit a “liquidity gap” as visible on the 24-hour Bitcoin liquidation heatmap from Coinglass. See below.
Bitcoin 24-hour liquidation heatmap. Source: Coinglass.
With the holiday season thinning out trading volumes, there simply weren’t enough new buyers to keep the engine running against a wall of sell orders at $90.5k.
The subsequent retreat turned into a rapid reversal as the market’s underlying “Extreme Fear” took hold.
As Bitcoin fell back toward the $88,000 to $86,000 zone, it triggered a cascade of long liquidations, with data suggesting over $565 million in aggregated liquidation intensity for long positions in this range.
This mechanical flush forced leveraged buyers out of their positions, creating a self-reinforcing downward move that sent prices back toward the weekly floor of approximately $86,744.
By late Asian trading hours, the safe-haven premium had evaporated, leaving the market once again range-bound and dominated by caution.
In the meantime, crypto exchange-traded products, which recorded $446 million in net outflows last week, show that institutional investors are hesitant to step back in.
Demand for these products was a major catalyst that supported Bitcoin’s sustained march toward record highs earlier this year, but as this institutional interest cools, recent rallies are failing to gain the follow-through necessary to break out of its current slump.
Will Bitcoin price go up?
According to recent data, Bitcoin’s “apparent demand” has officially flipped into negative territory for the first time since October, as investors increasingly adopt a cautious, risk-off approach heading into the new year.
Capriole Investment’s tracking reveals that this demand metric plummeted over the last two weeks, hitting -3,491 BTC on Monday, a sharp reversal from the peak of 18,700 BTC seen just a month ago on November 26.
This negative reading indicates that the net accumulation that had sustained Bitcoin since early November has finally given way to distribution and declining interest.
Bitcoin’s apparent demand has been positive since Nov. 6, peaking at around 18,700 BTC on Nov. 26, before reversing sharply as shown in the chart below. The negative value suggests declining demand.
At the same time, the Coinbase Premium Index, which tracks the price gap between Coinbase and Binance to gauge U.S. demand, has also cratered.
“The Coinbase $BTC Premium Index is still printing deep red bars, signalling that US selling pressure hasn’t lifted yet,” noted analyst Mv_Crypto in a recent update on X.
The analyst warned that until this metric shows signs of life, “approaching the long side requires extreme caution”.
Many in the market have highlighted $90,000 as the critical threshold Bitcoin must reclaim for any meaningful bullish momentum to unfold.
However, since mid-December, the price has been rejected from this psychological wall four separate times, leaving it pinned within its current range.
“Bitcoin needs to end the month in the green to lock in; close above $90,360 and we’re golden,” crypto analyst Jelle said as he pointed to a bullish divergence brewing on the monthly chart.
This pivotal level also aligns with the upper boundary of a descending broadening wedge on the 8-hour timeframe, a pattern identified by fellow analyst Captain Faibik.
See below.
BTC/USDT 8-hour price chart. Source: Captain Faibik on X.
If a breakout from this formation is successful, Faibik believes January could flip bullish, with his projections suggesting a rally that could eventually drive prices back toward the six-figure mark.
Top altcoin gainers for the day
In the past 24 hours, the altcoin market cap initially rose 4.5% to an intraday high of $1.39 trillion before settling back at $1.30 trillion at press time.
At press time, the majority of these large-cap crypto assets were in the red, with the exception of a few that managed to remain afloat when writing.
Ethereum (ETH) was down 3%, trading just below the $3,000 mark, while others, such as XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Cardano (ADA), recorded losses between 2-7%.
Audiera (BEAT) stood as the leading gainer of the day with double-digit gains of 43.8%, driven by its aggressive token burning strategy that effectively reduces the total supply in circulation and creates scarcity, helping to support any upside for the token.
Midnight (NIGHT) followed with more modest gains of 7.5% after the release of a new Starter Template that simplifies decentralized app development by offering wallet integration, testing frameworks, and faster deployment tools for developers.
Meanwhile, XDC Network (XDC) managed a 4.2% gain, bolstered by community optimism following reports that the total value of tokenized real-world assets on the network recently surpassed $717 million.
Source: CoinMarketCap
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