Risk-on, but not for crypto

Market overview

The crypto market capitalisation grew by 0.67% over the past day to $2.99 trillion. Bulls are seeking to take advantage of increased risk appetite in traditional markets but are facing increased selling pressure as they approach the $3 trillion mark. Of course, this is not one big ‘battle for crypto,’ but a series of separate battles in cryptocurrencies, where the flagships are doing slightly better, with Ethereum, BNB, XRP, and Solana gaining about 1.5% over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin is up 0.6% on the day, trading above $88K, having encountered increased selling pressure over the last two days in attempts to climb above $89K, despite the collapse of the dollar, which has already helped the stock and metals markets. At times, it seems that speculators' capital and attention are now focused exclusively on precious metals (mainly gold and silver), and there is simply no strength left for crypto.

XRP has stabilised at $1.9, a horizontal support level where the coin's sell-off has been halted since December 2024. A breakdown of this support could lead to a more profound decline in the market to the $0.5 area, which is the most important long-term support. If XRP manages to form a bottom, this will open the way to the $3.10-3.50 area.

News background

The largest outflow from global crypto ETFs since mid-November 2025 was likely fuelled by lower expectations of interest rate cuts, according to CoinShares. This indicates that investor sentiment has still not improved since the price collapse on 10 October 2025.

Investors' realised losses on Bitcoin reached $4.5 billion, a three-year high. CryptoQuant calls what is happening a market capitulation. The last time this happened was after an annual correction, when Bitcoin was trading at $28,000.

The key danger to the Bitcoin blockchain is posed by ‘ambitious opportunists’ seeking to change the protocol, said Strategy founder Michael Saylor. This could refer to developers promoting controversial use cases for the network, such as NFT issuance or image storage.

The hash rate of the largest mining pool, Foundry USA, has fallen by 60%. Data centre operators in the US are shutting down equipment en masse due to extreme weather caused by winter storm Fern.