Holds $90k As Etfs Wobble And Institutions Reposition:... Bitcoin
Bitcoin steadied near $90,000 as ETF flows turned negative, altcoins continued a valuation reset and DeFi markets showed pockets of renewed activity.
Cryptocurrency markets experienced a limited recovery this week as investor liquidity gradually returned after the holidays.
Bitcoin (BTC) topped a weekly high of $94,458 on Monday, before declining to about $90,937 at the time of writing on Friday.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) demand saw a sharp reversal after $1.1 billion in inflows on the first two trading days of the new year. The ETFs have since logged three consecutive days of outflows, with a cumulative $398 million sold on Thursday, according to Farside Investors data.
The steep decline in altcoins over the past year may reflect a broader reassessment of which blockchain networks are likely to attract long-term capital, as institutional investors begin a gradual, multiyear entry into the market, analysts said.
Excluding Bitcoin, 2025 turned out to be a bear market for the wider cryptocurrency market. Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens fell 67%, while cryptocurrencies associated with smart contract blockchains delivered a negative average return of 66%, according to blockchain data shared by Jamie Coutts, chief crypto analyst at Real Vision.
The past year’s poor performance was a “repricing” of the leading crypto projects as institutional capital was seeking to gain more exposure, Coutts wrote in a Wednesday X post.
“Repricing the highest quality (network adoption, fundamentally sound) protocols/L1s, just as the multi-year onboarding of institutional capital commences,” he said.
Coutts is the latest analyst to highlight an ongoing repricing in how cryptocurrencies are valued as maturing digital asset investors seek exposure to tokens powering protocols with organic usage and revenue, not just general altcoins.
Looking at the past year, Solana was the leading blockchain by fees, with $585 million generated, while second was Tron with $576 million in revenue, according to crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
Source: CoinTelegraph
