The crypto market continues to mature, and so do the growing pains. There are some very positive market developments, such as the rise of tokenized assets and the push for clearer regulation, but the market can be highly volatile due to macro issues and large leverage flushes. The market remains resilient and will rebound once the holidays end and liquidity returns.
Bitcoin Remains Steady as the Holidays Approach
Bitcoin wavered this week as macroeconomic news continued to drive wild price swings between 90k USD and 84k USD. The price is currently 87.5k USD and was adversely affected by the Non-Farm Payrolls, Initial Jobless Claims and November Consumer Price Index data, which were not well received by the market. Statistics to be released on December 23rd include Personal Consumption Expenditures and 3rd-quarter GDP data, and with BTC declining now, the market expects negative news.
Another major factor in the price drop could be the annual Bitcoin options expiry date on December 26th. This Boxing Day will be the largest BTC options expiration in history, amounting to over 23b USD. Institutional players have the most risk and will need to close outstanding contracts, open new positions for a later expiration date and/or rebalance their risk if BTC continues to drop. The next few days will be extremely volatile and traders need to be diligent over the coming days.
A positive result of the BTC price decline is less BTC mining because the price has fallen below financial profitability, as electricity costs are now breaking even. Large miners won’t mine if they are going to just break even. Historically, BTC has bounced after long periods of mining declines because institutional investors buy up the supply, and this has been evident as treasury companies have continued to buy the dip. In the past month, these companies have bought over 43k BTC, which is the largest purchase of BTC since April 2025, when BTC hit 76k USD.
ETH – Stablecoin Leader
Economic pressure has weighed heavily on Ethereum in the past week, but it stayed the course. The price traded in a narrow range of 2.8k and 2.9k USD and is currently trading at 2.97k USD. Most of the price volatility could be attributed to thin holiday liquidity, and ETH was up 1.2% for the week.
Ethereum continued to lead in stablecoin transfers, with around 95 B USD in daily transactions. ETH traded over 2.8t USD last October and 1.58t in November. It has solidified itself as not just a smart contract platform but also the settlement leader for global dollar liquidity because of huge strides in security, reliability, and speed.
More Global Adoption of TRX
Positive TRX statistics have continued to grow in the past year. Tron holds over 80b USD in Tether and has more than 345m user accounts, processing 13b transactions every day. TRX has also accepted USDT on its blockchain in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi. This means any authorized person/dealer can use TRX within regulatory guidelines. The Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) has recognized Tron’s commitment to transparent governance and boosted its adoption as a trusted infrastructure for cryptocurrency.
The altcoin had a stable week as it was up 1.4%, hitting a high of 0.288 USD and is currently trading at 0.284 USD with strong support at 0.283 USD.
Cardano Sets Lofty Targets
In the past few months, Cardano has expanded its vision beyond a one-chain standard to connect to other chains. This would enable other digital assets to access multiple networks and partner chains through ADA. It has partnered recently with Cardinal, which will allow a BTC bridge to ADA, enabling access to BTC’s vast liquidity. From the ensuing chain partnerships, ADA has set targets of 1.2m monthly active wallets, 28m transactions per month, 335m transactions per year and a TVL of 3.3b by 2030. These lofty targets are small in comparison to Solana, which does 71m transactions per day.
While Cardano has set mighty targets, there is the glowing fact that it has lost 65% of its market cap this year to around 13 billion USD. Technological improvements could bring back liquidity, but they face intense competition within the same sector(s). Most analysts are optimistic, but ADA faces massive hurdles before reaching these targets.
In the past week, Cardano has dropped by almost 6% and is trading at 0.362 USD with strong support at 0.358 USD. It is trading in a weak range, and any negative sentiment could drive it down further.
The past week was rather subdued as the seasonal holidays approach, with reduced liquidity and increased volatility, driven by the released U.S. macroeconomic data and ensuing releases of Q3 data. The last quarter of the year has seen a significant drawdown, but historically, these trends often precede massive bull rallies. The BTC options expiry in the next few days could set off a huge 2026 upside, and traders are cautiously watching any momentous movements in the market.
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