Bitcoin has slipped below the $92,000 level after a sharp decline that began on Sunday, signaling that downside pressure is still shaping market conditions. Despite the drop, bulls are trying to defend current levels and regain control, with many traders watching for a rebound that could restore confidence across the broader crypto market. The move comes at a sensitive moment, as risk appetite remains fragile and short-term volatility continues to shake out leveraged positioning.

Top analyst Darkfost highlighted that the market is now 109 days removed from Bitcoin’s last all-time high, placing the current drawdown into a wider cycle context. In previous major corrections, Bitcoin spent far longer in recovery mode, including 236 days between March 2024 and November, followed by another 154-day correction window between December 2024 and May 2025. Compared to those periods, the current pullback may still be early in its timeline, even if price action already feels aggressive.

What makes this correction stand out is the intensity of the pain across the market. Realized losses have stacked up, capitulation has been more visible, and short-term holders appear increasingly stressed, creating the sense that this decline is heavier than past resets. Even so, history suggests Bitcoin can remain in a choppy recovery phase for months without breaking the broader cycle structure.

Capitulation Builds, But the Cycle May Still Be Intact

Bitcoin’s recent decline has not been a “clean” pullback. Realized losses have stacked up, capitulation has looked aggressive, and short-term holders remain under heavy pressure as the market punishes late entries and weak conviction. Liquidation data has also shown how leverage has amplified the downside, with forced selling accelerating drops that might have otherwise played out more gradually. That backdrop is exactly why the correction feels so violent, even compared to past drawdowns.

However, Darkfost argues this phase still fits within the broader rhythm of Bitcoin’s cycle. His key point is that extended corrections are not unusual, even when they feel unusually painful in real time. From that perspective, the market could easily spend more months digesting losses and rebuilding positioning without signaling a full structural breakdown.

Where this cycle becomes more complex is the macro timing. Unlike previous cycles, Bitcoin’s post-bear all-time high and the halving narrative have overlapped with a new variable: ETF-driven demand. That shift changes how drawdowns develop, because deeper pools of institutional capital can absorb supply differently than retail-led rallies. If this institutional trend continues, Bitcoin may be transitioning into a structurally different market regime, with longer consolidations and less predictable “four-year cycle” behavior.

Bitcoin Slips Below Key Averages as Bulls Defend $90K Support

Bitcoin is back under pressure after failing to hold above the $92,000 zone, with the chart showing price sliding toward $91,300 as selling accelerates. The move keeps BTC trapped below major moving averages, reinforcing the idea that this rebound is still fragile and highly reactive to headline-driven volatility. After the January recovery attempt, the rejection near the descending resistance structure highlights that sellers remain active on rallies, limiting bullish follow-through.

Technically, the market continues to trade beneath the 50-day and 100-day trend lines, while the longer-term averages remain overhead, acting as dynamic resistance. This structure suggests BTC is still in a corrective phase rather than a confirmed trend reversal, despite short-term optimism earlier this month. Volume also shows a lack of sustained demand expansion, supporting the view that buyers are defending levels, but not fully regaining control.

The $90,000–$88,000 range now stands out as a critical support area, as it has acted as a base during recent consolidation. A clean breakdown below it could reopen downside risk toward the December lows, while a hold could keep the market building a recovery structure. For bulls, the first step is stabilizing above $92,000 again, then reclaiming the mid-$90,000s to shift momentum back in their favor.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

Bitcoin saw a sharp pullback this week, dropping below the $92,500 mark after failing to hold above $95,500. While the decline reignited bear market fears across crypto, bulls are now trying to stabilize price and defend the current range before selling pressure accelerates further. The move came as markets reacted to renewed macro uncertainty, with tariff headlines out of Europe adding fresh risk-off pressure across global assets.

The latest narrative centers on potential EU retaliatory measures against the United States, including tariffs and trade restrictions aimed at countering political threats tied to NATO tensions. Even without immediate implementation, the headlines were enough to tighten liquidity and trigger fast deleveraging, pushing Bitcoin lower as traders reduced risk exposure.

Despite the drop, analyst MorenoDV argues the market is not collapsing into a cycle end, but instead entering a phase of “risk redistribution.” His view is based on Bitcoin’s Realized Price by UTXO age bands, a framework that helps map where psychological pressure is building across different holder groups. Rather than tracking trend direction, the metric highlights which cohorts are comfortable, which are underwater, and where latent selling pressure could emerge.

In MorenoDV’s view, Bitcoin is rotating stress between cohorts, not breaking structurally.

Realized Price Bands Show Where Bitcoin’s Stress Is Building

Bitcoin’s current drawdown is not creating uniform stress across the market. Instead, pressure is building unevenly across different holder cohorts, based on their realized price levels. In the current setup, spot price sits near $95,583, while the 1w–1m cohort realized price is $89,255 and the 1m–3m cohort is $93,504.

That means newer short-term holders are still in profit, which is an important stabilizing factor. When the most recent buyers are rewarded rather than punished, downside follow-through tends to weaken, because fear does not compound at the margin.

However, the pressure is concentrated in older short-term cohorts. The 3m–6m realized price stands at $114,808, and the 6m–12m cohort sits near $100,748, placing both groups underwater. This suggests Bitcoin has not been aggressively redistributed at lower levels, since a large portion of mid-term holders remains trapped above spot. The market is showing discomfort, but not capitulation, with losses being absorbed through patience rather than forced selling.

If Bitcoin begins reclaiming the 6m–12m realized price, that cohort’s stress could ease quickly. Still, sustainability depends on psychology. Mid-term holders must view this phase as a temporary drawdown, not a structural breakdown. If that belief breaks, selling pressure can appear even stronger.

Bitcoin Slides Below Key Support As Bulls Defend the Range

Bitcoin is under pressure again after failing to hold above the mid-$95,000 zone, with price now trading near $93,000. The chart shows a sharp rejection from the recent local high, followed by a clean move lower that has erased a large portion of the latest rebound. This shift suggests that upside momentum remains fragile, even after the market briefly reclaimed higher levels earlier in January.

From a structure perspective, BTC is now back inside the broader consolidation range that formed after the late November sell-off. The recent bounce looked constructive at first, but the inability to sustain follow-through above resistance has brought sellers back into control. Volume has picked up on the decline, which typically reflects stronger conviction compared to slow pullbacks.

Bitcoin is also trading below its major moving averages on this timeframe, reinforcing the idea that the broader trend remains heavy until bulls reclaim key levels. In the near term, the market must hold support in the low-$92,000 to $93,000 region to avoid another liquidation-driven drop.

If bulls can stabilize price here, BTC may attempt another push toward $95,000. However, repeated rejections increase the risk of a deeper breakdown.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com 

On-chain data shows tokens aged between 3 and 5 years old have just moved on the Bitcoin network with two large transactions.

3 To 5 Years Old Bitcoin Supply Has Seen Movement Recently

As pointed out by CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn in a new post on X, two transactions involving old tokens have just occurred on the Bitcoin blockchain. The on-chain metric of interest here is the “Spent Output Age Bands,” which tracks how many tokens that the various coin age groups or “age bands” are moving on the network.

In the context of the current topic, the age band of interest is the one containing coins that have been dormant for between three and five years. Here is the chart for the Bitcoin Spent Output Age Bands shared by Maartunn that shows the data specifically for this cohort:

As is visible in the above graph, the Bitcoin Spent Output Age Bands have captured two large transactions from the 3 to 5 years age band during the past couple of days. The first of these involved 539 BTC, while the second moved 1,566 BTC.

The 3 to 5 years age band corresponds to coins that were purchased between January 2021 and January 2023, essentially covering the cycle spanning over the 2021 bull market and 2022 bear market. Thus, the tokens that have just been moved were held by investors who had been sitting silent since buying in the previous cycle.

“Dormant supply waking up is often a signal—either smart money rotating or early holders exiting,” explained the analyst. It now remains to be seen whether these transactions were a temporary deviation or if long-term holder whales will make more such moves in the near future.

In some other news, CryptoQuant has shared its 2025 review of digital asset exchange activity. One interesting finding is that stablecoins are heavily concentrated on Binance, with the exchange holding a combined $47.6 billion in USDT and USDC reserves. This is equivalent to 72% of the stablecoin holdings across the ten largest exchanges.

Binance also dominated 2025 in spot trading activity, recording close to $7 trillion in volume.

Binance’s dominance of trading volume wasn’t quite as stark as that of its stablecoin reserves, however, as it made up for 41% of the total spot volume among the top 10 platforms. The exchange’s share of the futures trading volume was similar, coming out at 42%.

Overall spot and futures trading volume in the cryptocurrency sector grew during 2025 compared to the end of 2024, but the yearly growth rate declined.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has been moving sideways recently as its price is still trading around the $92,200 level.