Bitcoin (BTC) saw explosive momentum starting in early November. By December 4, the leading cryptocurrency reached a new all-time high — closing above $100,000 for the first time in history.
However, in mid-December, the Federal Reserve announced that it would only make two rate cuts in 2025. Both the stock market and the cryptocurrency market saw an immediate pullback — on December 20, as much as $310 billion in value stored in digital assets was erased.
Things have improved somewhat since then — BTC has not reclaimed the $100,000 mark as of press time, but it has retraced back to approximately $96,240. Over the course of the last 7 trading days, Bitcoin has seen prices increase by just 0.78% — with year-to-date (YTD) returns standing at 128.02%.
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On the whole, cryptocurrency researchers and analysts remain bullish — but this recent macro-induced shock has brought a renewed wave of concern that the premier digital asset could see a steep correction before resuming its upward trajectory.
Analysts have largely turned bearish on BTC — at least in the short term
There’s no denying that an abundance of bearish signals are present — but the fundamental drivers of Bitcoin’s recent upswing are still in place.
First, let’s deal with the negatives. Over 33,000 BTC, worth a grand total of roughly $3.23 billion, has been transferred to cryptocurrency exchanges over the past week. Historically, such moves have preceded large-scale liquidations on the part of crypto whales — and while not definitive, this is yet another bearish signal.
Renowned cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez recently compiled a shortlist of analyst forecasts — most of which are quite bearish, and predict a drop (albeit a short-term one) to prices between $60,000 and $70,000.
Noted cryptocurrency technical analyst RLinda outlined both a bullish and bearish case — per the analysis provided in a December 25 TradingView post, a consolidation above $99,000 would most likely see BTC prices surge to $104,000.
In contrast, if the charts on the shorter timeframes keep printing lower lows, the asset could once again plummet to the recent low of $92,000.
Bullish signals for BTC are still present
Even once we take into account that the ATH price could not hold, BTC has still outperformed 75% of the top 100 crypto assets in a 1-year period. The leading digital asset is currently trading above its 200-day simple moving average, indicating that the uptrend is still in play.
At present, the level of support sits at roughly $92,143 — in contrast, a resistance level of $100,188 would have to be breached for a renewed rally. While moves to the downside like the ones seen in the past few weeks are worrying, outsized returns and increasing institutional adoption will most likely win out in the end.
In essence, no new bearish catalysts specific to Bitcoin have sprung up — meaning that there is no particular reason to see recent price action as anything but a relatively expected reaction to macroeconomic factors.
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