(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin continues to drift toward the lower bound of its recent trading range with any increase in the price seen being met by selling from investors who purchased the largest cryptocurrency near the all-time high reached in early October.
Crypto analytics firm Glassnode said various metrics point to a “mild bearish phase,” defined by modest capital inflows outweighed by steady selling pressure from larger holders. With prices stuck in a “weak but bounded range,” the firm noted, time itself becomes a negative force as unrealized losses accumulate. Relative unrealized losses jumped to 4.4%, the highest in nearly two years after spending most of that period below 2%, signaling a transition from euphoria to “elevated stress and uncertainty.”
Alex Kuptsikevich of FxPro said cryptocurrencies “have already entered a bear market,” arguing that any recovery is likely to attract fresh sellers.
Bitcoin slumped as much as 3.6% to $89,502 on Friday during New York hours, putting the token on pace to finish little changed on the week. It has tumbled almost 30% since reaching a record high of around $126,000 on Oct. 6.
The largest cryptocurrency has continued to fall with other risk assets in recent weeks but hasn’t rebounded when they have, breaking its usual upside correlation. The slide highlights what analysts see as a market squeezed by weak liquidity and fading risk appetite even after the Federal Reserve’s rate cut on Wednesday failed to revive momentum in digital assets.
Glassnode also added that implied volatility has already begun to ease and historically continues to compress after the final major macro event of the year — in this case, the Dec. 10 FOMC meeting. Absent a hawkish surprise, the firm expects gamma sellers to re-emerge, accelerating volatility decay into year-end and pushing markets toward a low-liquidity, mean-reverting regime.
Gamma sellers are typically market markers or large institutional investors who have sold options contracts and profit when the price of the underlying asset remains stable, though they face increased risk and potential losses during sharp price movements.
The macro backdrop has increasingly shaped crypto price action, according to Mitch Galer, a trader at GSR. He said trading flows have had an outsized impact in recent months — a hallmark of bearish conditions — amid a US government shutdown limiting access to Fed information, uncertain policy trajectories, and geopolitical unpredictability. While Galer anticipates short-term volatility to stay elevated, he sees scope for a year-end rebound as sentiment is “heavily negative” yet markets are no longer cascading lower.
Meanwhile, Timothy Misir, head of research at digital asset analytics firm BRN, said the market’s stabilization sits on a “fragile foundation,” with thin liquidity and split ETF flows showing an industry “searching for direction rather than committing to one.”
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