Crypto, Tradfi Sentiment Improves: Will Bitcoin Traders Clear...

Improving retail crypto and TradFi investor sentiment align with the recent uptick in Bitcoin price, but sell orders and short positions in the $93,000 range threaten to cap the rally.

Over the past two weeks, Bitcoin price repeatedly revisited the $90,000 range as retail investor sentiment improved, fund managers restated their bullish expectations for a potential end-of-year rally, and Strategy announced a sizable BTC purchase.

According to VanEck head of digital asset research, Matthew Sigel, Bernstein wrote that “the Bitcoin cycle has broken the 4-year pattern (cycle peaking every 4 years) and is now in an elongated bull-cycle with more sticky institutional buying offsetting any retail panic selling.”

Bernstein’s comments follow BlackRock chair and CEO Larry Fink mentioning that sovereign wealth funds are “incrementally” buying Bitcoin as it “has fallen from its $126,000 peak.”

Mirroring Fink’s and Bernstein’s view, on Monday, Strategy announced a fresh 10,624 BTC ($962.7 million) purchase at an average $90,615 per coin. Bitwise European head of research Andre Dragosch noted that Strategy’s purchase “was the biggest amount since July 2025.”

While Bitcoin’s recovery from its Nov. 21 low of $80,612 has followed the improvement in investor sentiment, the price is still capped in the $90,000 to $93,000 range. On Saturday, chartered market technician Aksel Kibar said,

Related: Did BTC's Santa rally start at $89K? 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

Cumulative volume data from Hyblock provides a more nuanced view, highlighting rising participation from investors in the 0 to 100 BTC trade cohort, which some analysts label as retail. Larger trade-size cohorts in the 1,000 to 100,000 and 100,000 to 1 million (cumulative volume delta) appear to be selling on rallies in the $90,000 to $93,000 price range.

Similarly, order book data for BTC/USDT (perpetual contracts at Binance) shows a wall of asks starting at $90,000 and thickening from $94,000 to $95,000.

Liquidation heatmap data, on the other hand, shows short liquidity at $94,000 to $95,300, which could serve as fuel for bulls to attempt a run on $100,000 if the market provides sufficient catalysts to induce an uptick in either spot or futures buying.

Source: CoinTelegraph