Despite the several consecutive all-time highs registered in 2025, bitcoin’s price ultimately closed below its starting price, which was the first such occasion in a post-halving year.
The cryptocurrency’s price actions have been choppy and uncertain for several weeks. It dipped to a local low of $84,500 on December 19, shortly after the US CPI numbers for November came out, but quickly tightened its trading range. In the following ten days or so, it stood between $90,500 and $86,500.
It tried to take down the upper boundary on at least three occasions since then, but each attempt was met with an immediate rejection and a subsequent retracement to the lower boundary. The current business week began similarly, as BTC spiked to $90,500, where the bears stepped up and pushed it south to under $87,000.
The bulls intercepted the move and provided an immediate relief rally to $88,000. Sideways action continued in the following days, but BTC ultimately closed 2025 below $88,000, which was a 6-7% yearly decline. January 1 was expectedly a dull trading day, but bitcoin went on the offensive earlier today.
It tapped $90,000 once again, only to be stopped and driven south by a grand and a half. Nevertheless, it has managed to bounce off and now sits above $89,000. This means that it’s over 2% up weekly, but its market cap has declined by 0.6% weekly as most alts have marked bigger gains since last Friday.
These include ETH, BNB, SOL, and ADA, all of which are up by 5-6%. DOGE has risen by more than 9%, and so has ZEC. XMR, HYPE, and BCH are among the few alts in the red weekly.
Market Data
Market Cap: $3.110T | 24H Vol: $100B | BTC Dominance: 57.1%
BTC: $89,300 (+2.3%) | ETH: $3,080 (+5.5%) | XRP: $1.92 (+3.8%)
This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss
Bitcoin (BTC) Breaks History: First Post-Halving Year Ends in the Red. As explained above, BTC finished 2025 in the red. While that’s not a first, it did break history as bitcoin had never ended a post-halving year with a negative performance until now.
The $10,000 Trump Trade: What Actually Made Money Since Inauguration Day. Trump re-entered the White House on the white crypto horse due to his multiple promises. However, data from almost a year later shows that none of the larger-cap digital assets were in the green, unlike the US stock market or, even better, the precious metal industry.
Ethereum Suffered Worst Year Since 2018: 9 Red Months in 2025. The second-largest cryptocurrency also tapped a new all-time high in 2025, but its overall performance was quite the opposite. It saw nine monthly closures in the red, which made it its worst year since 2018.
Tether Confirms $779M Bitcoin Purchase Despite Weak Market Momentum. The Paolo Ardoino-led stablecoin giant continues to accumulate BTC on a frequent basis, buying 8,888.8888888 units in Q4 2025. Strategy also announced a substantial bitcoin purchase last week, while Metaplanet returned to the BTC accumulation scene after a brief hiatus.
Bitcoin Set for Range-Bound 2026: Analysts Predict Trading Between $80K and $140K. Now that 2025 is in the history books, analysts have turned to BTC’s performance in 2026. An assessment published by XWIN Research Japan predicted that the cryptocurrency will trade between $80,000 and $140,000 during the new year.
BitMine Doubles Down on Ethereum as Markets Cool into Year-End. Just like BTC, the sluggish performance of ETH has not deterred its biggest accumulator from adding more to its stash. Recent on-chain data indicated that BitMine had bought another 32,938 ETH and staked almost 120,000 tokens.
The post Metaplanet Resumes BTC Accumulation, Strategy and Tether Buy More, but Bitcoin Ended 2025 in Red: Weekly Crypto Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.
