Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Hits Sell Wall, Drops Back Below $90,000
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped back below $90,000 as resistance and selling pressure persist. With liquidity thinning, the flagship cryptocurrency risks a breakdown towards $80,000 should key support levels fall.
The price reached an intraday high of $90,325 on Monday but lost momentum and settled at $87,110. BTC is down nearly 3% over the past 24 hours, trading around $87,824.
Analysts believe the current risk-averse stance is due to a mix of macro caution and technical resistance. However, with selling pressure from long-term hodlers having reduced, raising hopes for a relief rally.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits $148 Trillion
Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty hit $148.2 trillion after its final adjustment of 2025. The new difficulty is a 35% increase from the $109 trillion recorded at the beginning of 2025. Mining difficulty measures the computational difficulty that miners face in mining a new block. The difficulty is adjusted every two weeks to maintain an average block time of around ten minutes. Greater difficulty is indicative of rising miner participation. Data from CoinWarz shows that the network reached its highest difficulty on November 11, when it reached 156 trillion. The current difficulty level is 5% below the November peak, and 31% above the level recorded on January 1, 2025.
The next adjustment, scheduled for January 9, is expected to raise the mining difficulty to 149.3 trillion.
Bitcoin Long-Term Holders Pause Selloff
Long-term Bitcoin holders have halted selling for the first time in six months. Wallets holding BTC for 155 days or more reduced their holdings from 14.8 million coins to 14.3 million coins in December. However, crypto investor and entrepreneur Ted Pillows noted that the selling had tapered off. Pillows stated,
Long-term holders have stopped selling Bitcoin for the first time since July 2025. Things are looking good for a relief rally here.
Large Bitcoin holders are considered market movers, with their trades substantially influencing liquidity, market behavior, and investor psychology. The flagship cryptocurrency has traded between $86,000 and $90,000 as traders remain cautious. Market intelligence platform Santiment believes markets registered a spike in fear, uncertainty, and doubt as prices moved higher around Christmas.
Following the conclusion of the Christmas weekend, Bitcoin surged back above $90K and then fell below $87K. The rise came while FUD was becoming very high, as usual. Now that prices have dropped back, traders are being cautious again.
Strategy Announces Latest Bitcoin Purchase Of 2025
Michael Saylor’s Strategy has announced its latest and likely last Bitcoin acquisition of 2025. The company announced it had added 1,229 BTC worth $108 million to its holdings. The purchase takes the company’s total Bitcoin holdings to 672,497 BTC, purchased at an average price of $74,997 per coin. The latest purchase is one of the company’s smallest as it reins in its acquisition spree. The company made its largest Bitcoin purchase on March 31, when it acquired 22,049 BTC for $1.92 billion. It followed this purchase with 21,021 BTC for $2.46 billion in July.
Strategy began accumulating Bitcoin in 2020 and has established itself as the largest corporate holder of the asset by a wide margin. MARA Holdings, the second-largest Bitcoin holder among Bitcoin treasury companies, holds around 53,250 BTC.
Meanwhile, Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich revealed the company purchased 4,279 BTC during the fourth quarter, at an average price of $105,412 per coin. Gerovich revealed the company invested $451 million to fund acquisitions. Metaplanet currently holds 35,102 BTC, valued at around $3.78 billion.
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Analysis
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly crossed $90,000 on Monday, reaching an intraday high of $90,325. However, it failed to sustain momentum and was rejected yet again, settling at $87,110. The price fell nearly 2% over the past 24 hours, trading around $87,647. According to analysts, year-end trading and volumes have slowed down across major assets, and price action is expected to be muted over the next few days. Jake Kennis, senior research analyst at Nansen, stated,
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 on-chain 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.
The flagship cryptocurrency continues to face resistance at $90,000, and risks a breakdown to $80,000 if key levels fail to hold. $90,000 has acted as an impenetrable wall for BTC in recent sessions, with retests leading to repeated rejections. The level also aligns with local trend resistance and key-high-time-frame supply. Each time the price approaches, sellers aggressively prevent any decisive moves beyond this level and force Bitcoin lower. The rejections indicate exhaustion on the buyer side and reinforce the bearish bias within the current range and price action.
Meanwhile, market analyst Nic Puckrin believes Bitcoin must rally over 6% to reclaim $93,374 if it wants to end the year in positive territory. Puckrin stated in a post on X,
3 days left. 3 days for Bitcoin to recover & close up on the year. If not, this will be the first post-halving year we close in the red. 6.24% required to make this a green candle.
BTC has remained between $86,000 and $90,000 over the past two weeks. It ended the previous weekend at $88,639, registering a marginal increase. The price reached an intraday high of $90,541 on Monday but lost momentum and settled at $88,556. Selling pressure intensified on Tuesday as BTC fell 1.27% to $87,429. Despite the selling pressure, the price recovered on Wednesday, rising 0.21% to $87,609. However, selling pressure returned on Thursday as BTC fell 0.50% to $87,171.
Source: TradingView
BTC reached an intraday high of $89,496 on Friday but failed to sustain momentum and settled at $87,296. Price action remained positive over the weekend, with BTC rising 0.59% on Saturday and 0.08% on Sunday to $87,877. The price reached an intraday high of $90,325 on Monday. However, selling pressure forced BTC to retreat below $90,000 and settle at $87,110, falling nearly 1%. The price is up 1% during the ongoing session, trading around $87,997.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.