Bitcoin has had a rough start to 2025, with the first full week of the new year defined by extreme volatility.
After briefly reaching a weekly high of $102,290 on January 7, the leading cryptocurrency continued its downward trend to end the week at a low of $92,000 as risk-off sentiment prevailed in the cryptocurrency market.
Total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell by more than 5% over the past seven days to $3.37 trillion, as Bitcoin dominance increased by 2% during the same period.
Losses across the entire altcoin market were even more pronounced, with only a few top altcoins left in the green by late trading hours on Friday.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index reflects a lack of investor confidence, with the metric hovering at the neutral level of 50 at the time of writing.
Why did Bitcoin crash?
Bitcoin bulls started the week on a positive note, but lost strength due to dovish signals from the Federal Reserve indicating higher interest rates for a longer period of time, reducing risk appetite across the market.
Two major economic reports made the situation worse.
The Institute for Supply Management’s December PMI showed stronger-than-expected economic activity, rising to 54.1 from 52.1 in November.
Meanwhile, the November JOLTS report revealed an increase in job openings, but hiring slowed, and the attrition rate dropped to 1.9% from 2.1% in October. Many took this as a sign of potential uncertainty in the labor market.
Additionally, stronger-than-expected non-farm payrolls data released on Friday raised concerns that the Federal Reserve will not cut rates soon, further dampening market sentiment.
Adding to the woes, apprehensions from the US government, which recently decided to greenlight the sale of $6.5 billion worth of Bitcoin seized from darknet marketplace Silkroad, have sparked fears of an imminent selloff that could lead to significant selling. Can increase pressure.
Will Bitcoin go up again?
Apart from agreeing on Bitcoin’s long-term price target, analysts were mostly divided on its short-term trajectory.
Reiterating a bearish stance, analyst Eugene Ng Ah Siow said Bitcoin is retesting the December 5 range low, and traders are considering the idea that these levels may not hold. Noting the $90k support as important, the analyst predicted a drop to $85k if the level is not held.
Similar insight comes from Joe McCann, founder of Asymmetric VC Fund, who expects the bellwether to test $75k if the $90k support is broken.
According to Philip Piper, co-founder of Swarn Markets, current conditions are expected to persist as investors wait to gain better clarity on incoming President Donald Trump’s crypto policies.
For now, a bullish case for Bitcoin was presented by prominent trader Rect Capital, who believes a trend reversal is coming soon.
Notably, BTC was showing signs of bullish divergence around its low support level of $91k.
This, coupled with the fact that its current -15% pullback during the 7th week of price discovery, puts Bitcoin in a position to reverse, in line with historical trends seen during previous bull market corrections.
Meanwhile, well-known analyst Captain Parabolic Toblerone remains optimistic, suggesting that Bitcoin has completed its 4th wave and is now entering the 5th wave.
He estimates that this 5th wave could push Bitcoin to $210,000 before Valentine’s Day, which is a significant blow.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $93,509, down 4.3% from last week.
The altcoin market made some gains this week and the top performers were:
Needle
Sui (SUI) had the most gains among the top 100 crypto assets this week.
The altcoin is up 11.2% over the past 7 days, trading at $5.01 at press time with a market cap of approximately $15 billion.
Source: coinmarketcap
The gains came after it announced strong growth within the DeFi ecosystem in its 14th report.
According to the report, the Layer-2 network reached an all-time high TVL of $1.8 billion, with an average TVL of $1.4 billion, more than double that of the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, its cumulative volume increased nearly 10 times compared to the previous quarter.
XDC Network
Over the past week, XDC Network (XDC) rose 10.7%, taking its market capitalization to more than $1.4 billion.
Its daily trading volume has increased from $35 million to almost $60 million at the time of publication, leading to a bullish rise in value.
Source: coinmarketcap
As can be seen from the rising open interest in its futures market, the altcoin gained momentum due to increased interest from its derivatives traders.
Notably, the OI for XDC increased from $2 million to $5.85 million on January 7.
Another factor fueling its rally was its progress in the RWA token space, which was marked by notable partnerships with two leading RWA platforms, ArcEx and InvestaX.
fasttoken
FastToken (FTN) has surged for 5 consecutive days with a weekly gain of 7.2% at press time with a market cap of over $1.6 billion.
Source: coinmarketcap
Although no specific reason for the altcoin’s rally could be pinpointed at press time, most of its gains are likely due to the hype among its community members following a community Christmas event that rewarded its winners with a pool of 500 FTN tokens. .
Meanwhile, whales have also taken interest in the token, helping push prices higher last week.
Post Bitcoin Struggles While SUI and XDC Top Weekly Crypto Gains first appeared on Invez
