Solana (SOL) has entered the final stretch of 2025 under sustained pressure, caught between a weakening price structure and signs of steady institutional interest. Related Reading: Dogecoin: Why This One Price Level Is Drawing All the Attention Following a sharp 39% decline in the fourth quarter, SOL is struggling to regain momentum, trading in the low-$120 range as traders focus on whether key support levels can be sustained. The contrast between falling network activity and continued inflows into investment products has left the market divided on what comes next. While ETF-linked demand suggests confidence in Solana’s longer-term relevance, near-term price action remains fragile. With liquidity thinning toward year-end and broader crypto sentiment still cautious, SOL’s ability to defend lower support zones may shape how the market opens 2026. SOL's price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: SOLUSD on Tradingview Solana Network Slowdown and Bearish Technical Signals One of the main pressures on SOL has been a sharp drop in on-chain activity. The number of active users on the network decreased from approximately 30 million in late 2024 to under one million in Q4 2025, resulting in a decline in fee revenue and weakening demand for the token. This slowdown has coincided with a broader market pullback, as the total crypto market capitalization slipped toward $2.9 trillion and investors withdrew nearly $1 billion from digital asset investment products in a single week. Technically, momentum indicators remain tilted to the downside. SOL has posted a negative MACD reading and an RSI below neutral levels, while repeated failures to reclaim the $126–$130 zone have triggered long liquidations. Analysts warn that a loss of the $120 area could expose SOL to a deeper move toward $110, a level increasingly cited as a critical downside marker. ETF Inflows Highlight Institutional Divergence Despite weak price action, Solana-linked exchange-traded products have continued to attract capital. Recent data show more than $69 million in net inflows, setting SOL apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum products, which have seen net outflows. This divergence suggests some institutional investors are accumulating at lower prices, even as short-term traders remain defensive. Market watchers note that this gap between fund flows and spot price reflects differing time horizons. Institutions appear to be focused on Solana’s role as infrastructure for payments, tokenization, and high-throughput applications, while the spot market remains constrained by technical resistance and declining retail activity. Cross-chain Developments and Key SOL Levels Ahead Adding to the narrative, recent comments from Charles Hoskinson and Anatoly Yakovenko have reignited discussion around interoperability, with both founders signaling openness to a future cross-chain bridge between Solana and Cardano. While still early and informal, such developments spotlight ongoing efforts to expand liquidity and utility across ecosystems. Traders currently remain focused on price levels rather than long-term vision. Holding above $120 could stabilize sentiment, but a clear break below it would likely shift attention firmly to the $110 support zone. Related Reading: Altcoin Season Index Crashes To Low 17 As Bitcoin Price Struggles, What This Means Until SOL reclaims resistance near $130 with conviction, price pressure is likely to persist despite the steady drumbeat of institutional inflows. Cover image from ChatGPT, SOLUSD chart from Tradingview
Charts suggest the bulls will try to defend the support levels in ETH, BNB, XRP, SOL, and DOGE, but higher levels are likely to attract sellers.
On the day Bitcoin finally punched through $100,000, a lot of people did the same thing. They screenshotted it. They sent it to group chats, posted it with rocket emojis, and pulled up old tweets from 2021 to dust off the victory laps they had been saving for years. It felt like closure, like the […]
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The site acquisition gives Bitcoin miner Cipher a foothold in the largest US wholesale power market as miners broaden their infrastructure strategies.
The posting suggests Crypto.com is looking to beef up its in-house pricing and liquidity for sports contracts as prediction market volumes grow into the billions.
A crowded release slate buried plenty of standout games this year, so we’ve pulled together a list of hidden gems that still deserve your attention.
A burst of social-media sleuthing has focused on alleged redaction failures in newly released DOJ documents—raising real questions about digital security and viral misinformation.
The Bitcoin price could experience major swings this Friday as billions of dollars in options are set to expire. A crypto market expert has warned that the scale of this event could trigger “something big,” potentially affecting both volatility and the actions of retail and institutional investors. Bitcoin Price Braces For Major Moves This Friday On Monday, crypto analyst NoLimit signaled that this upcoming Friday could be a historic moment for Bitcoin. According to the expert, over $23.6 billion worth of Bitcoin options are scheduled to expire on December 26, marking the largest options expiry the market has ever seen. The analyst has stated that anyone with crypto holdings should pay close attention. Related Reading: The Bitcoin Bull And Bear Cases That Crypto Traders Should Know About NoLimit explained that an options expiry involves leveraged bets on Bitcoin’s price. He stated that calls are wagers that the price will rise, while puts predict it will fall. The analyst also emphasized that when these options expire, they either become worthless or force buying and selling in the spot market to hedge the positions. He also highlighted that with $23.6 billion in options expiring in a single day, a massive amount of risk will be removed from dealer books all at once. According to the analysis, this risk offloading is a key driver of market volatility, as the magnitude of the expiry is unprecedented. Looking at the data, previous year-end expiries were significantly smaller. In 2021, the options expiry was around $6 billion, followed by $2.4 billion in 2022. It climbed to $11 billion in 2023 and reached $19.8 billion in 2024. NoLimit has suggested that this year’s jump to $23.6 billion represents a significant shift in market dynamics. The analyst pointed out that retail investors no longer dominate the market. He stated that institutional-sized risk is now being repriced in real time, and this Friday could trigger significant price movements. NoLimit also suggested that the scale and timing of the expiry make it a critical event for traders and investors in the market. Analyst Reveals Why This Friday Truly Matters In his analysis, NoLimit outlined the specific reasons why this Friday truly matters as Bitcoin’s $23.6 billion options prepare to expire. He explained that dealers are heavily hedged around key strikes, and once expiry hits, those hedges are removed. As a result, the shift can trigger sharp moves for Bitcoin in either direction. Related Reading: Don’t Expect A Fast Bitcoin Move – Here’s How Long The Last Leg Could Take The analyst noted that current market conditions could further amplify the impact. According to his analysis, Bitcoin’s liquidity is extremely low during the holiday week, and less volume typically means each order has more influence. As a result, the expert stated that a violent price move could occur even without major news. NoLimit also noted that much of Bitcoin’s Open Interest is concentrated near the major psychological levels. Once the expiry passes, this open interest disappears entirely. He explained that this is why markets often experience sideways trading leading into expiry, followed by a clear directional move shortly afterward. The analyst added that volatility is the key setup this week. He says the crucial moment to watch is the Bitcoin price after the expiry, not before. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
Crypto market maker DWF Labs settled its first physical gold trade, signaling a rare move into legacy commodities amid surging bullion prices.
The Central American country’s economy is projected to grow 4% this year, the IMF said.
Digital asset treasury companies — the year's worst performers — were also hardest hit on Tuesday.
Silver breaks above $71 after a 138% rally in 2025, lifting its market cap near $4 trillion as investors seek hedges.
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The Wall Street giant's move — should it come to pass — would further legitimize crypto and increase distribution channels, said ClearStreet's Owan Lau.
Bitcoin’s recent price action has started to wear on people. After a strong start to the year and a run that pushed above $100,000 and briefly touched $125,000, the market has drifted into something closer to a low-volatility grind. On the 1000x podcast, ProCap’s Jeff Park argued that this shift in “market structure” is not a minor detail. In his view, it is the central reason Bitcoin has struggled to reassert momentum, even as gold and other commodities have pushed to fresh highs. Bitcoin Needs Volatility Park’s thesis is straightforward: Bitcoin’s upside story historically leans on volatility. If volatility compresses and stays compressed, Bitcoin loses one of the features that has consistently attracted marginal risk capital, especially the kind of capital that shows up early, pushes price, and then pulls in the next cohort behind it. “There’s two things we need to hit on,” Park said. “One is the belief in the projection that I have for Bitcoin to reach meaningfully new highs that we need implied volatility and realized volatility to rise concurrently. And then the second is to your question, why is that not happening today?” He framed Bitcoin less as an isolated “crypto asset” and more as one instrument in a much wider relative-value universe. In that universe, Bitcoin competes for allocation with equities, rates, FX, and commodities, not just other tokens. And the attribute that made Bitcoin distinct for many allocators was its capacity for asymmetric outcomes, which volatility helps express. Related Reading: Bitcoin Perps Heat Up Again As Leveraged Longs Rise “Bitcoin is not in a microcosm of its own, right?” Park said. “You’re competing with Mag 7, you’re competing with gold, you’re competing with FX, you’re competing with JGBs, and it’s a huge world out there. And the feature that I think Bitcoin has always been exciting for a lot of folks is to capitalize upon asymmetric outcomes in which the volatility is one of the unique features that makes it worthwhile for the risk-taking endeavor.” Bitcoin Needs ‘Real’ Buyers That sets up the uncomfortable comparison the hosts kept circling: gold making new highs while Bitcoin lags. Park didn’t try to wave it away. He called it a moment for Bitcoin holders to be realistic about adoption and about where the truly structural bids are right now. “The reality is gold is going up because there’s real buyers, right?” he said. “There’s real buyers stepping in as there has been for the past year and a half. And those structural bids continue to exist because it has found a product market fit within our global monetary framework as a reserve asset.” Park argued Bitcoin is not there yet. Yes, there are recurring headlines about sovereign interest, and he referenced the Czech Republic’s central bank as an example of a country testing Bitcoin exposure. But he emphasized that the dominant flows in 2025 have been ETFs and corporates, not governments and not central banks. “Make no mistake, it’s not governments and it’s not central banks,” he said. “Most of the flows today have come from ETFs and corporates. ETFs are coming because there’s private wealth investment advisors that want exposure to an asset class… Corporates have a very different intention of what they’re trying to accomplish.” Related Reading: Galaxy Predicts Bitcoin At $250,000 In 2027, Chaos In 2026 In Park’s telling, that distinction matters because it changes the market’s tone. ETF buyers are often seeking portfolio construction benefits, decorrelation, optionality, a non-consensus sleeve, rather than the kind of high-conviction, narrative-driven bid that historically made Bitcoin feel like the market’s main event. Retail Adoption Must Return Park then extended the argument into a broader cultural point about who actually pushes new adoption. He described Bitcoin as a generational project and warned that institutionalization only works if it remains anchored to retail participation rather than replacing it. “At the core of it is because Bitcoin is a movement of young people’s hearts,” Park said. “If young people stop participating, I think the fact that the institutionalization of Wall Street is happening on the back of their investments is also going to come to a halt… If you want Bitcoin to continue to perform, you want to appeal to young participants.” He also pointed to a separate drag: Bitcoin’s risk conversation has become noisier. Park cited renewed “quantum anxiety” and internal disputes around various Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, arguing that even low-probability existential risks need to be compensated and low volatility does not offer that compensation. “Gold doesn’t have that,” he said, contrasting Bitcoin’s ongoing protocol and existential debates with gold’s comparatively settled narrative. “You have to be compensated for it… and you are certainly not going to be compensated for quantum risk with Bitcoin vol at 25.” Even so, Park did not present the long-term case as broken. If anything, he argued Bitcoin’s advantage becomes more obvious when you focus on practical ownership rather than financialized wrappers. He described physical gold as operationally difficult – opaque pricing, logistical friction, authenticity concerns — and said Bitcoin still offers something closer to a single global clearing price and simpler portability. “Anyone who’s ever tried to buy physical gold knows how annoying that process is,” he said. “The pricing is intransparent. The logistics is unclear and ultimately authenticity too… Bitcoin still has what I call a singularly clearing price for trading.” Why Isn’t Bitcoin Going Up? | Jeff Park https://t.co/CxtFhRKcIZ — 1000x (@1000xPod) December 22, 2025 At the end, Park said the main question going forward is whether Bitcoin can regain the conditions that historically pulled new participants into the trade and whether the market is willing to pay for the risk it keeps insisting Bitcoin represents. At press time, Bitcoin traded at $87,779. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
With the Trump administration and many pro-crypto officials taking office, 2025 saw significant changes in US crypto policy, with ripples likely extending into 2026.
Circle positions EURC as a MiCA-compliant, fully reserved euro stablecoin for real-time payments and global use.
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Despite President Nayib Bukele's claim that El Salvador's government wouldn't stop buying Bitcoin, the IMF said negotiations for the sale of its wallet were ”well advanced.”
Megawatts are still trading hands, and the AI trade is very much alive, according to investment banker Joe Nardini, as miners pivot to HPC and buyers chase scarce power.
Bybit's enhanced insurance fund mechanism could stabilize trading environments, potentially attracting more users by mitigating volatility risks.
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Bank of Russia outlined a new framework intended to let retail and qualified investors buy crypto under defined tests and caps by 2027.
Glassnode data shows BTC and ETH ETF net flows have stayed negative since November, highlighting reduced institutional demand.
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BitGo's move enhances institutional access to blockchain staking, potentially increasing institutional adoption and trust in crypto assets.
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Bitcoin is still moving in a tight range, but short-term charts show the recent drop may be close to ending. While the market remains volatile, some traders believe selling pressure is starting to ease. Let’s break it down in simple terms. What Just Happened to Bitcoin? After falling earlier, Bitcoin made what many experts call …
The battle for control of Aave, the $52 billion decentralized lending giant, has escalated from a debate over interface economics into an open civil war regarding governance legitimacy. What began as a dispute over $10 million in annualized swap fees and brand ownership has, in the last 24 hours, mutated into a bitter procedural fight […]
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The announcement comes just days after Bybit said it had returned to the U.K.
According to recent interviews, billionaire investor Ray Dalio has sharpened his caution about Bitcoin’s fit for official reserves while still recognizing its scarce nature. Related Reading: Before You Sell Bitcoin For Gold, Hear This Warning He said that Bitcoin carries money-like qualities because of its limited supply, but he drew a firm line over who should hold it on a balance sheet. Dalio said public transaction records and the risk of outside interference make it hard for reserve managers to treat Bitcoin the same way they treat gold. Dalio Flags Traceability Concerns Dalio warned that the open ledger that underpins Bitcoin creates vulnerabilities for large custodians. He argued that public transactions can be traced and, in some scenarios, interrupted, which raises concerns for institutions charged with protecting national wealth. NEW: RAY DALIO SAYS THAT BITCOIN IS “UNLIKELY TO BE HELD SIGNIFICANTLY BY CENTRAL BANKS” – TRANSACTIONS ARE TOO TRANSPARENT, THE GOVERNMENT CAN INTERFERE WITH THEM pic.twitter.com/NzxrhBzp4m — DEGEN NEWS (@DegenerateNews) December 20, 2025 He contrasted this with gold, which he said is harder for authorities to control once it is taken out of the formal financial system. He also raised security worries, including the possibility that Bitcoin could be cracked, broken, or controlled in ways that would alter its long-term usefulness as a store of value. Stablecoins Seen As Transactional Tools Based on reports, Dalio also gave a low rating to stablecoins as long-term holdings. He pointed out that stablecoins are tied to fiat currencies and generally do not pay interest, so they work well for quick transfers but not as wealth preservation. He said he keeps some exposure to Bitcoin personally — “a little bit” — but places gold ahead of it when the goal is an asset shielded from state actions. Last year, Dalio urged investors to favor scarce assets like gold and Bitcoin over debt instruments as many big economies wrestle with rising debt. Institutional Demand And Market Signals Crypto markets are moving closer to mainstream finance with spot Bitcoin ETFs and improved custody services, and market structure is shifting. BTC will hit $250k by year-end 2027. 2026 is too chaotic to predict, though Bitcoin making new all-time highs in 2026 is still possible. Options markets are currently pricing about equal odds of $70k or $130k for month-end June 2026, and equal odds of $50k or $250k by year-end… — Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) December 21, 2025 According to Galaxy Research, overlapping macro and market risks make Bitcoin unusually hard to forecast in 2026. Galaxy’s team says options pricing and volatility trends show Bitcoin acting more like a macro asset than a pure high-growth gamble. The same research group nonetheless kept a long-term bullish stance, projecting that Bitcoin could reach $250,000 by the end of 2027. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s $126K Sprint May Be Over — Fidelity Predicts 2026 Slide Macro Signals And Price Outlook That mix of views highlights a separation between policy suitability and price potential. Dalio’s focus is on whether sovereigns will accept the asset on a reserve ledger; Galaxy’s analysis looks at how markets may price Bitcoin under evolving macro forces. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
APT declined on heavy volume as the CoinDesk 20 index fell 2.8%.
Crypto.com is hiring an internal market maker for its prediction markets, saying the move complies with regulations and aims to boost liquidity amid scrutiny.
The company manages a portfolio of consumer brands and holds about 2 million SOL, making it the fourth-largest solana treasury of any public company.
The crypto merchant bank's head of research said bitcoin's price in 2020 dollar terms peaked out this year at $99,848.