Bitcoin held near $87,000 on Tuesday, setting a steady tone for crypto as Asian equities took a breather after a seven-day run and investors marked down US tech stocks into year-end.
MSCI’s gauge of Asia Pacific shares slipped 0.1% in early trading, and S&P 500 futures edged lower after the US benchmark fell 0.3% on Monday.
The Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.5% in that session, with Tesla, Nvidia and Meta among the notable decliners.
The softer equity tape arrived alongside another bout of metal volatility. Silver and gold swung after a sharp pullback from fresh all-time highs, as traders booked profits and liquidity thinned after the holidays.
Crypto traders kept describing the same theme, a market that keeps moving, then does it with less depth.
Market snapshot
- Bitcoin: $87,164, down 1.9%
- Ether: $2,929, down 2.3%
- XRP: $1.85, down 2.2%
- Total crypto market cap: $3.03 trillion, down 2.1%
Bitcoin And Ether Drift Sideways As Year-End Volumes Fade
Jake Kennis, senior research analyst at Nansen, said year-end trading has slowed and volumes have faded across major assets. “Bitcoin and Ethereum have both traded largely sideways over the past week, reflecting seasonal inactivity rather than a meaningful shift in market structure,” he said.
“Activity has cooled across most chains, with a broad consolidation in active addresses, transactions, and fees generated over the past 30 days. Chains like Base saw notable pullbacks in DEX volumes following a very strong run earlier in the year. Solana remains the dominant venue for onchain trading by volume, even as user activity softened slightly over the week, with BNB Chain a distant second.”
“Overall, trading activity hasn’t disappeared; it has simply slowed and become more selective as the year comes to a close.”
Profit-Taking Hits Metals After New Highs
Macro investors, meanwhile, stayed focused on the policy path. Investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve’s December meeting minutes due later Tuesday, a release that often resets rate expectations when positioning runs crowded.
The bigger picture still shows a strong year for risk assets, despite the late-year wobbles. The MSCI All Country World Index has climbed about 21% in 2025, and a broad measure of Asian stocks has rallied almost 26%, according to market-wrap data.
In metals, the latest move showed how quickly crowded trades can unwind. Spot silver fell 4.8% on Monday after earlier hitting a record, and gold eased after setting its own peak on Friday, with profit-taking doing the heavy lifting.
For crypto, Bitcoin’s steadiness looked more like a positioning pause than a conviction push, with traders watching liquidity, flows and volatility pricing for the next move into the first week of 2026.
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