This Week In Crypto: Bitcoin Survives The $84K Washout, But The Battle Isn’t Over
In Brief
Bitcoin swung between $84K and $94K in early December, reflecting macro stress and miner pressure, but stabilized near $90K with structural signs of a potential recovery.
December isn’t exactly greeting us with mulled wine and a soft up-only trendline. The first week dumped Bitcoin to the low-80Ks, yanked it back to the mid-90Ks and then left us sitting around $90K wondering whether that was “the” flush or just the dress rehearsal.
Let’s walk through what actually happened on the tape and in the headlines, and what it means for Bitcoin, Ether and TON going into the rest of the month.
Bitcoin (BTC)
BTC spent the first week of December whipping between roughly $84,000 at the lows and $94,000 at the highs, and is now parked near $90,000. Lower highs versus November, but also a very clear refusal (so far) to break down through the low-80Ks.
The opening move was classic “macro + positioning” stress. The weekend/Monday slide to around $84K came against a wall of headlines about weakening US labor data, sticky macro uncertainty and Japan’s bond market wobble and carry-trade unwind risk. That mix pushed dollar funding nerves back into the narrative and, with it, the usual “maybe risk assets need another leg lower” chatter.
Into that, you had an already fragile crypto structure. November left us with:
- miners in what several analysts now call the “harshest margin environment of all time,” as hashprice and payback periods compressed brutally;
- treasuries and proxy stocks being repriced hard, with names like American Bitcoin and other BTC-linked equities getting halved in days;
- and a series of onchain metrics showing heavy realized losses and forced de-risking rather than voluntary profit-taking.
That’s why the flush felt so sharp: a lot of over-levered and over-confident positioning was still hanging around after the summer/early-autumn euphoria, and December’s first sessions simply finished the clean-up.
Then the bounce. The snap back toward $93–94K started, ironically, with the same macro story that had just scared everyone. Traders stopped obsessing over “will they cut this meeting?” and shifted out along the curve, toward the idea of Fed cuts coming next year instead. At the same time, the end of QT and early signs of a pickup in global liquidity gave the whole backdrop a softer edge. Into that shifted macro view came the headlines that actually put names to the bid: Texas openly buying Bitcoin for state reserves, and, on the TradFi side, Bank of America and Vanguard finally giving their mainstream clients access to spot Bitcoin ETFs instead of keeping that door shut.
Taken together, it stopped feeling like a 2022 replay and more like a messy reset inside an ongoing cycle — enough to drag sidelined spot buyers back in and squeeze shorts who had crowded into the $84–88K pocket.
At the same time, the structural picture was quietly improving instead of cracking. Miners are still under heavy margin pressure, but ETF and ETP flows have flipped back to net positive after several weeks of steady outflows.
Bitcoin treasury names like Strategy have raised large cash buffers to protect dividends, rather than panic-selling coins into the weakness.
And a whole cluster of onchain indicators — liveliness, profit ratios, valuation bands — has drifted away from “blowoff” territory toward levels you normally see late in a drawdown or at the start of a reset.
That is why more analysts are dusting off the 2023 comparison and arguing that, if this really is the same kind of clean-out, the odds of a strong recovery into 2026 are higher than the four-hour candles would have you believe.
So where does that leave us as traders?
For now, December is drawing a pretty clean battle zone. Roughly $84–85K is the line where forced sellers showed up and then got absorbed. The yearly open and recent rejection area around $93–94K is the first serious overhead test. Until one of those breaks decisively, this is range-trading country: fake breakdowns, sharp mean reversion and a market that punishes anyone who extrapolates a four-hour candle into a grand macro thesis.
If you are long-biased, this is the environment for staggered bids and disciplined invalidation rather than “all-in on the first green daily.” If you’re flat or hedged, the message from the first week of December is this: the bull-market structure may still be intact, but it’s going to extract a volatility tax before it lets anyone ride cleanly toward six figures.
Disclaimer
In line with the Trust Project guidelines, please note that the information provided on this page is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other form of advice. It is important to only invest what you can afford to lose and to seek independent financial advice if you have any doubts. For further information, we suggest referring to the terms and conditions as well as the help and support pages provided by the issuer or advertiser. MetaversePost is committed to accurate, unbiased reporting, but market conditions are subject to change without notice.
About The Author
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
More articles
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
