Bitcoin may face its weakest year since 2018, as the market rebound cannot conceal the downturn in the second half.

The price of Bitcoin recently briefly rebounded to around $90,000, providing some breathing room for the long-dormant crypto assets market. However, most analysts believe this is more of a technical rebound rather than a trend reversal. Overall, the second half of 2025 could become one of the weakest phases for Bitcoin since 2018, as traders' concerns about market momentum are intensifying.

In the past 24 hours, major crypto assets have generally maintained a range-bound oscillation. XRP, Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and Dogecoin (DOGE) have all risen by about 2%, indicating a slight recovery in short-term sentiment. However, Aave (AAVE) has continued to decline by about 7% due to ongoing governance disputes, making it one of the weakest-performing tokens in the market.

The total market value of Crypto Assets has re-approached the $30 trillion mark, which is an important psychological level that has been fiercely contested over the past month. However, analysts point out that the rebound in total market value does not necessarily mean that risk appetite has truly warmed up; it is more likely to reflect a weak rebound after a temporary pause in selling pressure.

Alex Kuptsikevich, Chief Market Analyst at FxPro, stated that the recent market trend is primarily driven by technical factors, which is a natural recovery following several weeks of consecutive declines. He pointed out that the crypto market is trying to stabilize, but there is still a significant gap before a true recovery can be achieved. Currently, the market's fear and greed index has only risen to 25, indicating that extreme pessimism has somewhat eased, but investors remain cautious.

From the price structure, Bitcoin once approached $88,000 during the Asian morning session, close to the recent upper edge of the fluctuation range. However, Bitcoin is still down about 30% from the peak in 2025, with a negative performance for the year. Kuptsikevich bluntly stated that the optimistic expectations at the beginning of the year have been corrected by reality, and market confidence has significantly weakened.

Seasonal factors cannot be ignored either. CoinGlass data shows that Bitcoin has fallen more than 22% so far in the fourth quarter of this year, making 2025 one of the worst performing periods in non-extreme bear market years by year-end. Although historically Bitcoin has experienced strong rebounds in some fourth quarters, year-end declines are also common against the backdrop of tightening liquidity and rising macro uncertainty.

In addition, recent market trends show that the US stock trading hours have a significant impact on the crypto market. On several trading days, the gains made during the Asian and European sessions were quickly reversed after the North American market opened, further deepening the uncertainty of short-term trading.

Overall, the short-term rebound of Bitcoin is hard to mask the overall weakness of the market. Before there is a substantial improvement in the macro environment and liquidity conditions, the crypto market may still remain in a stage of fluctuations and repeated testing.