Bitcoin Price Pauses At $90k: What Will Trigger New Year Rally?

Bitcoin needs a return of retail and institutional demand for BTC to clear the next big hurdle at $90,000 and spark a new rally toward six figures.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) end-of-year rally toward $90,000 appeared to be stalling due to a lack of demand and weak onchain activity. Still, a new technical setup suggested that momentum may increase once the BTC/USD pair breaks above $90,000.

Apparent demand and buying from US investors must recover to secure a new year rally for BTC.

Bitcoin must next take out immediate resistance at $90,000 to trigger a rally going into 2026.

Bitcoin’s apparent demand has flipped negative after falling to its lowest level since October, as traders and investors adopted a risk-off approach into the new year.

Related: Bitfinex whales go long BTC for 2026: 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

Capriole Investment’s Bitcoin Apparent Demand metric reveals that the demand for Bitcoin has dropped sharply over the last two weeks to -3,491 BTC on Monday, levels last seen on Oct. 21.

Bitcoin's apparent demand has been positive since Nov. 6, peaking at around 18,700 BTC on Nov. 26, before reversing sharply as shown in the chart below. The negative value suggests declining demand.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium Index, which measures the difference in pricing between the BTC/USD pair on the largest US exchange, Coinbase, and Binance’s BTC/USDT equivalent, has also dropped sharply over the last two weeks.

The chart below shows that the index has tanked to the current value of  -0.08 from 0.031 on Dec. 11.

Source: CoinTelegraph