Bull and Bear Crossroads: Is Bitcoin's New Year Expected to Break 100,000?

Written by: Glassnode

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

After a large-scale year-end correction, Bitcoin enters 2026 with a clearer market structure. Currently, profit-taking pressure has eased, and market risk appetite is gradually recovering. However, to establish a sustained upward trend, it is still crucial to hold steady and reclaim key cost basis levels.

Summary

Bitcoin, after experiencing a deep correction and months of consolidation, officially enters 2026. On-chain data shows that profit-taking pressure has significantly eased, and the market structure shows initial signs of stabilization in the lower range.

Although selling pressure has decreased, a large amount of trapped positions remains above the current price, mainly concentrated in the upper half of the current range. This will continue to suppress upward movement, highlighting the importance of breaking through key resistance levels to restore an upward trend.

Demand from digital asset treasury companies for Bitcoin still provides underlying support for the price, but this demand is pulse-like, lacking sustainability and structural consistency.

After net outflows at the end of 2025, US spot Bitcoin ETF funds have recently shown signs of net inflows. Meanwhile, open interest in futures markets has stopped declining and begun to rise again, indicating that institutional investors are re-engaging, and derivatives activity is rebuilding.

Record-breaking options positions are expiring at year-end, with over 45% of open contracts liquidated. This has removed structural hedging constraints in the market, allowing true risk appetite to be more clearly reflected in prices.

Implied volatility is likely at a bottom stage; demand from buyers at the beginning of the year has mildly pushed up the volatility curve, but it remains at a low level within the past three months.

As the premium on put options narrows and the proportion of call options trading increases, market skewness continues to normalize. Since the beginning of the year, options trading has tilted significantly toward bullishness, indicating investors are shifting from defensive hedging to actively positioning for upside opportunities.

In the $95,000 to $104,000 range, market maker positions have turned net short, meaning that as prices rise into this range, their hedging actions will passively push prices higher. Additionally, the premium on call options around the $95,000 strike shows that long holders tend to hold rather than rush to take profits.

Overall, the market is gradually shifting from a defensive deleveraging phase to a selective risk-on stance, entering 2026 with a clearer structure and higher resilience.

On-Chain Insights

Profit-taking pressure has significantly eased

In the first week of 2026, Bitcoin broke out of a consolidation range near $87,000 that lasted for several weeks, rising about 8.5%, with a high of $94,400. This rally was built on a substantial cooling of overall profit-taking pressure. In late December 2025, the 7-day moving average of realized profits had sharply fallen from high levels above $1 billion daily during most of Q4 to $183.8 million.

The decline in realized profits, especially the reduced selling pressure from long-term holders, indicates that the main selling pressure suppressing price rises has been temporarily released. As seller strength weakens, the market stabilizes and regains confidence, fueling a new upward move. Therefore, the early-year breakout signals that the market has effectively digested profit-taking, opening space for prices to rise.

Facing Resistance from Trapped Positions Above

As profit-taking pressure eases, prices can further advance, but the current rebound is entering a supply zone composed of positions with different cost bases. The market has entered a range mainly controlled by “recent top buyers,” whose cost bases are densely distributed between $92,100 and $117,400. These investors bought heavily near previous highs and held through the decline from the all-time high to around $80,000, until the current rebound.

Thus, as prices climb back into their cost bases, these investors will have opportunities to break even or realize small profits, forming natural resistance to further upward movement. To truly restart a bull market, the market needs time and resilience to absorb this supply above and push prices through this zone.

Key Recovery Levels

While facing resistance from above, determining whether the recent rebound can truly reverse the previous downtrend and enter a demand-driven phase requires a reliable price analysis framework. The short-term holder cost basis model is particularly important during this transition.

Notably, the market’s weak balance in December last year occurred near the lower boundary of this model, reflecting fragile market sentiment and lack of buyer confidence at that time. The subsequent rebound pushed prices back toward the model’s mean, around $99,100, which is the short-term holder cost basis.

Therefore, the first key confirmation signal of market recovery will be the price’s ability to sustain above the short-term holder cost basis, indicating renewed confidence among new entrants and a potential shift to an optimistic trend.

Profit and Loss Crossroads

As the market’s focus shifts to whether it can effectively reclaim short-term holder cost bases, the current market structure bears similarities to the failed rebound in Q1 2022. If prices cannot sustain above this level, deeper declines may occur, and confidence could further erode, shrinking demand.

This dynamic is also clearly reflected in the Short-Term Holder MVRV indicator, which compares spot prices to the average cost of recent buyers to gauge unrealized gains or losses. Historically, when this indicator has remained below 1 (price below average cost), the market has been dominated by bears. Currently, the indicator has rebounded from a low of 0.79 to 0.95, meaning recent buyers are still holding about 5% unrealized losses. If the market cannot quickly return to profitability (MVRV > 1), downside risks remain, making this a key indicator to watch in the coming weeks.

Off-Chain Insights

Demand from digital asset treasuries cools

Corporate treasury demand still provides important marginal support for Bitcoin, but their buying behavior remains intermittent and event-driven. Several entities have shown weekly net inflows of thousands of BTC, but these do not form sustained, stable accumulation patterns.

Large inflows tend to occur during local price corrections or consolidations, indicating that corporate buying remains opportunistic and price-driven rather than a long-term structural accumulation. Although the number of participating institutions has expanded, overall inflows are pulse-like, with long silent periods in between.

Without continuous treasury buying support, corporate demand mainly acts as a “stabilizer” for prices rather than a driver of sustained upward trends. Market direction will increasingly depend on derivatives positions and short-term liquidity conditions.

ETF Fund Flows Return to Net Inflows

Recent data shows early signs of institutional re-entry into the US spot Bitcoin ETF market. After a period of net outflows and low trading activity at the end of 2025, recent weeks have seen clear net inflows, coinciding with the price stabilizing and rebounding in the $80,000 range.

While current net inflow levels have not yet reached mid-cycle peaks, the trend is turning positive. The number of days with net inflows is increasing, indicating that ETF investors are shifting from net sellers to marginal buyers.

This shift suggests that institutional spot demand is once again providing positive support rather than liquidity pressure, offering structural buying support for the market’s stabilization early in the year.

Futures Market Participation Rebounds

Following the sharp deleveraging caused by price declines at the end of 2025, open interest in futures markets has recently begun to rise again. After falling from a cycle high of over $50 billion, open interest has stabilized and grown modestly, indicating derivatives traders are rebuilding risk positions.

This rebuilding aligns with the stabilization of prices above $80,000 to $90,000, showing traders are gradually increasing risk exposure rather than rushing to chase higher prices. The pace of re-accumulation remains moderate, and open interest remains well below previous cycle highs, reducing the risk of large-scale liquidations in the near term.

The gentle rebound in open interest signals improved risk appetite and a gradual return of derivatives buying, helping prices to establish a new phase of valuation as liquidity normalizes at the start of the year.

Options Market “Position Reset”

At the end of 2025, Bitcoin options markets experienced the largest position reset in history. Open interest dropped from 579,258 contracts on December 25 to 316,472 contracts expiring on December 26, a decrease of over 45%.

A large concentration of open positions at certain strike prices influences short-term price movements through market maker hedging. By the end of last year, this concentration led to “price stickiness,” limiting volatility.

Now, this pattern has been broken. With the expiration and clearing of these concentrated positions, the market has shed the structural constraints of previous hedging mechanisms.

The post-expiry environment offers a clearer window into true market sentiment, as new positions reflect current risk appetite rather than residual positions. This makes the early weeks of options trading in 2026 more directly indicative of market expectations for future trends.

Implied Volatility Likely at Bottom

Following the large reset of options positions, implied volatility touched short-term lows during Christmas. During the holiday period, with low trading activity, weekly implied volatility fell to its lowest since late September last year.

Subsequently, buyer interest has begun to return, with investors gradually building bullish volatility positions (especially calls) around the New Year, gently lifting the volatility curve across maturities.

Although it has rebounded somewhat, implied volatility remains compressed. Volatility across one week to six months remains between 42.6% and 45.4%, with a relatively flat curve.

Volatility remains at low levels within the past three months, and recent increases more likely reflect renewed market participation rather than a comprehensive re-pricing of risk.

Market Balance

As implied volatility stabilizes, skewness provides a clearer view of traders’ directional preferences. Over the past month, the premium for out-of-the-money puts relative to calls has continued to narrow, with the 25-Delta skew gradually returning toward zero.

This indicates a market gradually shifting toward bullish positioning. Investors are moving from purely hedging against downside to increasing exposure to upside opportunities, consistent with their rebalancing after year-end position adjustments.

Meanwhile, defensive positions have decreased. Some downside protection positions have been unwound, reducing the premium paid for “black swan” insurance.

Overall, skewness suggests that market risk expression is becoming more balanced, with increased expectations for upward movement or volatility expansion.

New Year Options Trading Shows Bullish Preference

Fund flow data confirms the skewness trend. Since the start of the year, options activity has shifted from systematic selling of calls (betting on volatility decline) to active buying of calls (betting on upside or increased volatility).

In the past seven days, bullish call buying accounted for 30.8% of total options volume. The rising demand for calls has also attracted volatility sellers, who are selling calls (comprising 25.7% of total activity) to earn higher premiums.

Put options account for 43.5% of total volume, which is relatively moderate given recent price gains. This aligns with the normalization of skewness, indicating reduced demand for immediate downside protection.

Market Makers Turn Negative in Key Range

With active call trading since the start of the year, market maker positions have also adjusted accordingly. Currently, in the $95,000 to $104,000 range, market makers are overall net short.

Within this range, as prices rise, market makers hedge risk by buying spot or perpetual contracts, which can passively push prices higher during strength, contrasting with the environment at the end of last year that suppressed volatility.

The behavior of traders buying calls heavily in the $95,000 to $100,000 expiry contracts further confirms a shift in risk expression. The current market maker position structure suggests their hedging actions are no longer suppressing price volatility in this zone and may even amplify upward moves.

$95,000 Call Premium Shows Patience

The premium behavior of call options at the $95,000 strike is an effective indicator of market sentiment shifts. When spot prices were around $87,000 on January 1, the premium for calls at this strike began accelerating and continued to increase as prices approached the recent high of $94,400.

Subsequently, the premium buying slowed but did not significantly decline. Importantly, this process was not accompanied by a large increase in call option selling.

This indicates limited profit-taking among call holders. Since the recent high, call selling has only increased mildly, suggesting most call positions are being held rather than quickly closed for profits.

Overall, the premium behavior around the $95,000 strike reflects the patience and confidence of bullish participants.

Summary

As Bitcoin enters the new year, it has significantly cleaned up its historical positions in spot, futures, and options markets. The deleveraging at the end of 2025 and the expiry of year-end options have effectively removed previous structural constraints, leaving a cleaner, clearer environment.

Early signs of renewed participation are emerging: ETF fund flows stabilize and rebound, futures activity rebuilds, options markets shift toward bullish positioning—skewness normalizes, volatility bottoms out, and market makers turn net short in key upper ranges.

These dynamics collectively indicate that the market is gradually transitioning from a defensive sell-off mode to a phase of selective risk-taking and increased engagement. Although structural buying remains to be strengthened, the release of historical position pressures and the reaccumulation of bullish sentiment suggest Bitcoin is starting 2026 with a lighter footprint, improving internal structure and opening more possibilities for subsequent growth.