Bitcoin fell below $ 90,000 with accelerated sales in the Asian session, reaching its lowest level in the last five days. Market participants felt the impact of repeated resistance rejection throughout December, as the price quickly fell sharply after hitting a local peak of $91,570 in the last 24 hours. The move, combined with deepening losses in altcoins and weak liquidity conditions, revealed a picture in which risk appetite in the cryptocurrency market has significantly narrowed.
Band Movement and Macro Print in Bitcoin
Bitcoin failed to break the $94,500 threshold for the third time since the beginning of last month. The latest pullback, which came after the experiments on December 4 and 10, was similar to the price behavior in the last six weeks. Thus, the trading range became clear in the range of $ 85,000–94,500. The band in question serves as a relative balance area after the sharp retreat to $80,600 on November 21, following the record high of $126,220 on October 6.
On the macro front, the decline in US futures and the rise of the dollar index exceeding 1 percent since December 24 have diminished the appetite for risky assets. Intraday losses in Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures contracts showed that the sales seen in the cryptocurrency market cannot be explained only by local dynamics. The strengthening of the dollar increased volatility, especially by putting pressure on leveraged positions.
Altcoins, Derivatives and Liquidity Squeeze
The altcoin market experienced steeper losses due to the impact of low volume transactions. While privacy-focused Zcash stood out with a drop of more than 16 percent from midnight to the morning hours, double-digit declines were also recorded in altcoins such as PUMP and DASH. The DeFi index and memecoin index performed weaker compared to the overall market, indicating that capital was withdrawn from speculative areas.
On the derivative side, more than $400 million was liquidated in the last 24 hours, and most of the liquidations took place in long positions. While the total open position size decreased from its peak of over $141 billion to $140 billion, the limited increase in Bitcoin futures and positive funding rates suggested the search for bottom buying. On the other hand, the decrease in open positions in ETH, SOL, XRP, ZEC and SUI contracts confirmed the capital outflow towards altcoins.
Although the perception of short-term downside risk in the options market has weakened, the fact that put contracts are still traded at a premium maintains a cautious stance. The narrowing of liquidity due to the liquidation of a $19 billion derivative position at the beginning of October causes single large transactions to have an exaggerated impact on prices. During the unloading of the $12 million long position in Zcash, the inadequacy in the order books magnified the losses compared to the general market.
