Trading Moment: Japan's rate hike triggers, Bitcoin faces a critical test at $81,000, Ethereum's rebound is weak

Daily Market Highlights and Trend Analysis, produced by PANews.

1. Market Observation

Despite the US November CPI YoY unexpectedly dropping to 2.7%, and core CPI falling to 2.6%, hitting a new low since 2021, fueling market expectations of the Fed accelerating rate cuts, the reliability of this report has been widely questioned due to data collection disruptions caused by the government shutdown. The market swings amid mixed signals: on one hand, White House officials believe the Fed has “ample room for rate cuts”; on the other hand, the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate to 0.75%, a 30-year high, continuing to tighten global liquidity. On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act, aimed at clarifying crypto market rules, is expected to enter Senate review in January next year, bringing positive industry expectations. However, the financial markets are facing the largest quarterly derivatives settlement in history, with approximately $7.1 trillion in risk exposure potentially increasing volatility. Against this backdrop, Wall Street analysts remain cautious about the 2025 year-end outlook, but institutions like Goldman Sachs remain optimistic about long-term assets such as gold, predicting gold could rise to $4,900 in 2026. Although the crypto market shows bullish conditions, it remains weak and may have structural issues, with overall outlooks full of uncertainty.

The Bitcoin market is in a fragile consolidation phase, with prices oscillating between support at about $81,000 and resistance in the $93,000 sell zone. Glassnode data shows that high-level supply pressure, increasing realized losses, and weakening demand limit its upside potential. They indicate that if Bitcoin falls below $81,300, it could trigger more sell-offs. The market faces multiple pressures: firstly, long-term holders are experiencing the most intense sell-off in over five years, confirmed by analyst James Check; secondly, upcoming options expirations on December 19 and 26 (with a notional value of up to $23.8 billion) also suppress prices, with the “max pain” point on December 26 at $100,000. Analyst opinions vary significantly: Killa, through the USDT.D chart, suggests a prolonged bear market with targets at $74,000 and $68,000; meanwhile, Mayne sees similarities to the April bottom, with a short-term test of $80,000; AlphaBTC expects a “Santa rally” rebound to around $100,000; Astronomer has already started building long positions targeting $112,000. For the long-term outlook in 2026, analyst “Far Mountain Insights” predicts the most likely scenario is BTC oscillating between $70,000 and $100,000 to build a bottom, with a 60% probability, viewing that year as a period of accumulation rather than seeking quick profits.

Ethereum also faces pressure, with prices failing to break through the downtrend line, and the key support at $2,800 being tested. Analyst Ted notes that if this level holds, a rebound to $3,000 is possible; if broken, further decline to $2,500 may occur. Daan Crypto Trades even suggests that breaking below $2,800 could open the way to the next major support at $2,100. In contrast to the market’s bearish sentiment, institutional buying remains active. Data shows that addresses suspected to be Bitmine have bought at least $229 million worth of ETH this week.

2. Key Data (as of December 19, 13:00 HKT)

(Source: GMGN, CoinAnk, Upbit, SoSoValue, CoinMarketCap)

• Bitcoin: $87,058 (YTD -7.1%), daily spot trading volume $62.57 billion
• Ethereum: $2,920 (YTD -12.33%), daily spot trading volume $35.59 billion
• Fear & Greed Index: 16 (Extreme Fear)
• Average GAS: BTC: 1.2 sat/vB, ETH: 0.04 Gwei
• Market Share: BTC 58.5%, ETH 12.4%
• Upbit 24-hour trading volume ranking: XRP, BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE
• 24-hour BTC Long/Short Ratio: 49.93% / 50.07%
• Sector Gains and Losses: Crypto market continues to decline, AI sector down over 5%, NFT sector down 2.2%
• 24-hour Liquidation Data: Total 135,667 traders liquidated globally, total liquidation amount $510 million, with BTC liquidations at $183 million, ETH at $126 million, SOL at $31.79 million

3. ETF Flows (as of December 18)

• Bitcoin ETF: -$161 million, only BlackRock’s IBIT shows net inflow
• Ethereum ETF: -$96.62 million, continuous net outflow for 6 days
• Solana ETF: +$13.16 million
• XRP ETF: +$30.41 million

4. Today’s Preview

• Binance Alpha will launch zkPass (ZKP) on December 19
• Binance will remove spot trading pairs including AI/FDUSD, BICO/BTC, and others on December 19
• LayerZero community will start the third fee switch voting on December 20
• Binance Alpha will launch TradeTide (TTD) on December 20
• LayerZero (ZRO) will unlock approximately 25.71 million tokens at 7 PM Beijing time on December 20, representing 6.79% of circulating supply, valued at about $38.6 million
• Lista DAO (LISTA) will unlock approximately 33.44 million tokens at 5 PM Beijing time on December 20, representing 6.85% of circulating supply, valued at about $5.5 million

Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap today: Bitcoin Cash up 8.7%, LEO Token up 5.6%, Story up 5.1%, World Liberty Financial up 4.4%, Canton Network up 4%.

5. Hot News

• Arthur Hayes: Maelstrom is aggressively accumulating high-quality altcoins
• Lido’s new proposal suggests investing $60 million in 2026 to execute the GOOSE-3 plan
• “1011 Insider Whale” with a long position worth $695 million has an unrealized loss of $77.22 million
• CF Benchmarks considers Bitcoin a core asset in investment portfolios, predicting its 2035 price will reach $1.4 million
• CZ’s competitor whale’s $237 million long position is currently unrealized loss of $40.3 million, ETH longs are close to liquidation again
• Huang Licheng took short-term profits from long positions in BTC, ZEC, and HYPE, then closed, with ETH longs incurring a loss of $359,000 again
• US November unadjusted CPI YoY at 2.7%, core CPI YoY at 2.6%
• Trump Media & Technology Group’s pre-market gains expanded to 37.5%
• Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice announced the detention of 210.45 Bitcoin assets
• JPMorgan Chase deployed JPM Coin on the Base blockchain, limited to transfers among whitelisted users
• Uniswap submitted the UNIfication proposal, planning to burn 100 million UNI tokens