Cryptocurrencies Repeatedly Plunge and Rebound, Market Cap Stagnates

▲ Bitcoin (BTC)

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has retreated to around $2.3 trillion, continuing to move sideways. The upward momentum formed at the beginning of the week failed to gain further traction, with investors selling into rallies whenever prices rise. Over the past three weeks, the market has largely traded within a narrow range between $2.2 trillion and $2.4 trillion. Such sideways movement is often observed during strong bearish market conditions.

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $67,000, failing to sustain its upward trend. As technology stocks on Wall Street face pressure, Bitcoin is also moving lower in tandem. Although it remains above the rebound level seen last Tuesday, it has gradually traced a downward curve, giving back roughly half of its recent gains. As cautious sentiment spreads across the market, the trading range is becoming even tighter.

The exchange reserves of stablecoin USDT have sharply declined from $60 billion to $51.1 billion over the past two months. On-chain data analytics firm CryptoQuant warned that if reserves fall below $50 billion, it could trigger large-scale selling pressure across the cryptocurrency market. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, also expressed a pessimistic outlook, stating that Bitcoin has completely failed as a store of value and predicting it could crash to $10,000 by the middle of this century.

Movements among whale investors are also drawing attention. Large holders of Ethereum (ETH) have sold their holdings even at a loss, and some companies have abandoned their Ethereum accumulation strategies to pivot toward real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Meanwhile, GD Culture Group, ranked 15th among publicly listed companies in Bitcoin holdings, plans to sell part of its Bitcoin reserves to fund share buybacks. In contrast, decentralized finance platform Aave made history by surpassing $1 trillion in total loan volume, becoming the first in the industry to do so.

Strategy has become the most heavily shorted U.S. large-cap stock. Market participants have raised doubts about the company’s Bitcoin strategy of issuing shares and taking on debt to purchase Bitcoin. As concerns grow over the impact of Bitcoin’s price volatility on the company’s financial stability, investor caution has intensified.

Ethereum developers announced a roadmap to conduct a total of seven hard forks every six months through 2029. This year’s scheduled updates are titled “Glamsterdam” and “Hegota.” Despite ongoing network improvement plans, the market is reacting more sensitively to immediate price movements and macroeconomic variables. Attention is focused on which direction the cryptocurrency market, currently trapped in a narrow range, will ultimately break out.

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