Bitcoin may have significant upside from here as its current price appears to be out of step with the forward macroeconomic outlook, according to a crypto researcher.
“The last time I saw such an asymmetric risk-reward was during COVID,” Bitwise Europe head of research André Dragosch said in an X post on Friday, referring to March 2020 when global pandemic fears sent Bitcoin’s (BTC) price tumbling from around $8,000 to below $5,000.
Dragosch said that while Bitcoin’s current setup mirrors the extreme risk-reward conditions seen during the COVID pandemic, it is also “pricing in the most bearish global growth outlook since 2022,” pointing to a period marked by aggressive quantitative tightening from the US Federal Reserve and the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
Bitcoin is “pricing in” a recessionary environment
“Bitcoin is essentially pricing in a recessionary growth environment,” Dragosch said, arguing that the asset has already priced in “a lot of the bad news.” On Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reassured US citizens that the nation was not at risk of entering a recession in 2026.
Bitcoin is down 17.33% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap
However, Bitcoin’s price has not performed as many market participants had hoped this time of year. After Bitcoin reached new all-time highs of $125,100 on Oct. 5, it entered a downtrend following a $19 billion liquidation event on Oct. 10, which came shortly after US President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese goods.
Crypto market sentiment deteriorated further when Bitcoin fell below the psychological $100,000 level on Nov. 13 and has yet to reclaim it. While it briefly dipped below $90,000 on Nov. 20, some hope was restored when Bitcoin quickly rebounded above the level a few days later.
Dragosch said global growth is likely to pick up from here, driven by the impact of “preceding monetary stimulus,” which he believes could support growth well into 2026, similar to how it did after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I genuinely think we’re staring at a similar macro setup right now,” Dragosch said.
Bitcoiners are not convinced of a bear market
Other crypto market participants are anticipating a similar rebound.
Crypto trader Alessio Rastani recently told Cointelegraph that the recent drop may not signal the start of a prolonged bear cycle.
Instead, he argued that the data points to a historically recurring setup that has preceded strong rallies roughly 75% of the time.
Meanwhile, BitMine chair Tom Lee said on Wednesday that he is confident Bitcoin will reclaim $100,000 by the end of the year and may even reach new all-time highs.
BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) closed November under pressure after experiencing heavy withdrawals, but the asset manager remains confident in its long-term outlook for the product.
Speaking in São Paulo, BlackRock business development director Cristiano Castro said the company’s Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs had become one of its biggest revenue drivers, calling their growth “a big surprise” given how fast allocations surged this year.
Castro’s comments followed a rough month for BlackRock’s US-listed IBIT, which logged an estimated $2.34 billion in net outflows across November. The two largest withdrawals came mid-month, with about $523 million leaving on Nov. 18 and roughly $463 million on Nov. 14.
“ETFs are very liquid and powerful instruments,” Castro reportedly said after his panel at the Blockchain Conference 2025. “They exist to let people allocate capital and manage cash flow. What we’ve been seeing is perfectly normal; any asset that starts to experience compression usually has this effect, especially in an instrument that is heavily controlled by retail investors.”
IBIT performance over the past month. Source: SoSoValue
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETFs neared $100 billion in peak assets
Castro added that demand earlier in the cycle speaks for itself. Combined US and Brazil listings under the IBIT nameplate came “very close to $100 billion” in assets at their peak, he said.
As Cointelegraph reported, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF holders returned to profit after Bitcoin climbed back above $90,000 on Thursday.
Investors in BlackRock’s IBIT now sit on a cumulative gain of about $3.2 billion, reversing the losses seen during Bitcoin’s recent pullback. IBIT and BlackRock’s Ether ETF holders were up nearly $40 billion at their peak in early October before profits collapsed to just $630 million last week, meaning most positions were close to break-even until the latest rebound.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs ended four weeks of heavy withdrawals with a $70 million weekly inflow, reversing part of the $4.35 billion that left the sector during November.
Spot Ether (ETH) ETFs also rebounded, logging $312.6 million in weekly inflows after losing $1.74 billion over the previous three weeks.
Bitcoin has reached a crucial overhead resistance, where the bears are expected to mount a strong defense.
Several major altcoins are attempting a recovery, which is likely to be met with selling pressure at higher levels.
Bitcoin (BTC) recovered above $93,000 on Friday, but the bulls are struggling to sustain the higher levels. BTC remains on target to end November in the red. According to CoinGlass data, every time BTC closed November in the red, it was followed by a negative monthly close in December.
Select analysts view the current dip as a buying opportunity. LVRG research director Nick Ruck told Cointelegraph that the recent fall has wiped out overleveraged participants and unsustainable projects, paving the way for new long-term investors to buy “ahead of a promising new year.”
Crypto market data daily view. Source: TradingView
Crypto sentiment platform Santiment also sounded positive in a report on Wednesday, stating that the “uptick in declaration of crypto being in a bear market, and rise of bearish sentiment” is a bullish sign as markets generally move opposite to the crowd’s expectations.
What are the crucial resistance levels to watch out for in BTC and major altcoins? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
Bitcoin price prediction
BTC’s recovery has reached near the 20-day exponential moving average ($93,256), where the bulls are expected to face significant resistance from the bears.
If the price turns down sharply from the 20-day EMA, the bears will make one more attempt to tug the BTC/USDT pair below the $84,000 to $80,600 support zone. If they can pull it off, the Bitcoin price may slump to $73,777.
Instead, if bulls do not cede much ground to the bears from the 20-day EMA, it suggests that the buyers are holding on to their positions. That increases the likelihood of a break above the 20-day EMA. The pair could then soar toward the psychological level of $100,000.
Ether price prediction
Ether (ETH) has reached the 20-day EMA ($3,109), which is likely to attract strong selling by the bears.
If the price turns down sharply from the 20-day EMA, the ETH/USDT pair could decline to $2,623. Buyers are expected to fiercely defend the $2,623 support, as a break below it may sink the Ether price to $2,400.
Alternatively, a close above the 20-day EMA suggests that the selling pressure is reducing. The pair could climb to the breakdown level of $3,350 and thereafter to the 50-day SMA ($3,541).
XRP price prediction
XRP (XRP) has been witnessing a tough battle between the buyers and sellers at the 20-day EMA ($2.20).
The flattening 20-day EMA and the RSI just below the midpoint do not indicate a clear advantage either to the bulls or the bears. If the 50-day SMA ($2.34) gets taken out, the XRP/USDT pair could rise to the downtrend line.
On the other hand, if the price turns down and breaks below $2.14, it suggests that the bulls have given up. The XRP price could then slump to the support line, which is likely to attract buyers.
BNB price prediction
BNB (BNB) rose above the breakdown level of $860 on Monday and has reached the 20-day EMA ($910), indicating buying at lower levels.
A close above the 20-day EMA suggests that the bears are losing their grip. The BNB/USDT pair could then rally to the 50-day SMA ($1,019), which is an important level for the bears to defend.
On the downside, if the price breaks below $860, it shows that the bears remain in command. That heightens the risk of a break below the $790 level. The BNB price may then plummet to $730.
Solana price prediction
Solana’s (SOL) relief rally has hit a wall at the 20-day EMA ($144) but the bulls have not ceded much ground to the bears.
That increases the possibility of a break above the 20-day EMA. The SOL/USDT pair may then climb to the 50-day SMA ($167), where the bears will again try to halt the recovery. However, if buyers overcome the barrier at the 50-day SMA, the pair could rally toward $190.
Sellers will have to sink the Solana price below the $126 support to retain control. If they succeed, the pair could descend to $110 and eventually to the solid support at $95.
Dogecoin price prediction
Dogecoin’s (DOGE) relief rally is facing selling at the 20-day EMA ($0.16), indicating that the bears are active at higher levels.
The bears will strive to pull the Dogecoin price below the formidable support at $0.14. If they do that, the DOGE/USDT pair could start a new downtrend and descend to the Oct. 10 low of $0.10.
Alternatively, if the price turns up and breaks above the moving averages, it shows that the bulls are aggressively defending the $0.14 support. The pair could then rise to $0.21, suggesting that the price may remain inside the $0.14 to $0.29 range for some more time.
Cardano price prediction
Cardano (ADA) is struggling to reach the 20-day EMA (0.47), indicating a lack of demand from the bulls.
The bears will try to strengthen their position by pulling the Cardano price below the $0.38 level. If they manage to do that, the ADA/USDT pair could resume the downtrend and retest the Oct. 10 panic low of $0.27.
Buyers will have to drive and maintain the price above the breakdown level of $0.50 to indicate strength. The pair could then rise to the 50-day SMA ($0.56) and later to the $0.70 level.
If the price breaks above the 20-day EMA, the HYPE/USDT pair could reach the 50-day SMA ($39.12). The bears are expected to mount a strong defense at the 50-day SMA, but if the bulls prevail, the Hyperliquid price could soar to $44 and then to $51.50.
This bullish view will be invalidated in the near term if the price turns down from the moving averages and breaks below the $29.30 level. That opens the doors for a drop to the Oct. 10 low of $20.82.
Bitcoin Cash price prediction
Buyers have managed to maintain Bitcoin Cash (BCH) above the resistance line, signaling buying on dips.
The 20-day EMA ($523) has started to turn up, and the RSI is just above the midpoint, indicating a slight advantage to the buyers. The bulls will have to propel the Bitcoin Cash price above $568 to start a new up move to $580 and then to $606.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down and breaks below the moving averages, it indicates that the market has rejected the breakout from the falling wedge pattern. The bears will then attempt to sink the BCH/USDT pair to the vital support of $443.
Chainlink price prediction
Chainlink (LINK) is facing selling near the 20-day EMA ($13.84) but a positive sign is that the bulls have not ceded much ground to the bears.
That increases the likelihood of a break above the 20-day EMA. The LINK/USDT pair could then climb to the 50-day SMA ($15.87), where the bears are expected to pose a substantial challenge. A break and close above the 50-day SMA brings the large $10.94 to $27 range into play.
Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will attempt to defend the 20-day EMA and pull the Chainlink price to the solid support at $10.94.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Ether’s price may rise nearly 7% in the near term, as subdued stablecoin yields suggest the crypto market has yet to reach overheated conditions, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.
“Currently, yields are low, around 4%. This indicates the market has not reached a major top and could still push higher,” Santiment said in a report on Saturday, forecasting that Ether (ETH) could revisit its $3,200 resistance level soon.
This represents an approximate 6.7% increase from its price of $2,991 at the time of publication according to CoinMarketCap.
Ether is down 21.85% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap
Santiment said stablecoin yields in lending protocols offer “a gauge of market health” and are currently low, averaging roughly 3.9% to 4.5% across major platforms. The platform explained that a surge in yields typically indicates an increase in speculative leverage, a pattern that has historically preceded major crypto market tops.
Spot Ether turns positive after the broader market downturn
While Ether’s price has lagged in recent weeks, technical and flow-based signals are beginning to show early signs of recovery. The asset has posted a 21.32% decline over the past 30 days, as part of a broader market downturn that began after the significant $19 billion crypto market liquidation event on Oct. 10. This followed shortly after US President Donald Trump announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods.
Crypto analyst Matthew Hyland pointed out in an X post on Saturday that the “ETH-BTC Weekly is closing in on a bullish ribbon flip for the first time since July 2020.”
Meanwhile, spot Ether ETFs staged a turnaround this week, recording $312.6 million in net weekly inflows after three straight weeks of heavy withdrawals.
Market sentiment is showing signs of improvement
Sentiment across the broader crypto market is also showing signs of improvement. In November, historically Bitcoin’s strongest month, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index spent 18 days in “extreme fear” before moving up to a “fear” reading on Saturday, signaling some stabilization in market sentiment.
Looking ahead, December has historically posted an average return for Ether of 6.85% since 2013, according to CoinGlass.
That said, with October and November typically being strong months for Bitcoin (BTC), which have underperformed this year, many in the broader crypto community are questioning the reliability of seasonal trends.
Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano said the goal to significantly increase Ethereum’s gas limit to 180 million next year is a baseline rather than a best-case scenario.
“I think that’s the floor, that’s the minimum, I think we can go higher than that,” Sassano said during an interview on the Bankless podcast on Friday, just a day after Ethereum’s gas limit, which is the maximum amount of work the network allows in each block, was raised from 45 million to 60 million.
“The general consensus that has been set by the core developers and researchers is that they want to aim for at least a 3X increase in the gas limit for the next couple of years,” he said.
Sassano pointed out that some Ethereum core developers are even discussing a potential fivefold increase in the gas limit within the next year.
ETH gas limit goal can be achieved through repricing transactions
It is an important development for Ethereum users as a higher gas limit allows Ethereum to fit more work into each block, including swaps, token transfers and smart contract calls.
Anthony Sassano spoke to Ryan Adams on the Bankless podcast. Source: Bankless
Sassano said developers can achieve this by rebalancing transaction costs, making some activities cheaper on Ethereum while increasing the expense of others.
“We can lower the cost of a basic ETH transfer from 21,000 gas to 6,000 gas, which is an over 70% cost reduction, while keeping the gas limit the same,” he said, explaining that by redistributing costs in this way and repricing other activities, the network could ultimately support higher gas limits.
“We’re basically trading efficiencies here,” Sassano said. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was among those advocating a potential fivefold increase, proposing higher costs for operations that are “relatively inefficient to process.”
Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is expected to happen next week
Sassano co-authored the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) with Ethereum core developer Ben Adams, and the pair are aiming to include it in Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade, expected in the first half of 2026.
Several Ethereum developers recently weighed in on the network’s recent increase to a 60 million gas limit, a move supported by more than 513,000 validators. Adams was one of those who said in an X post on Friday, “Remember when ‘double L1 gas’ sounded spicy on Twitter?”
“The Ethereum gas limit debate went from ‘too risky’ to ‘already live’ in under a year,” Adams said. Echoing a similar sentiment, Ethereum core developer Toni Wahrstätter said, “That’s a 2× increase in a single year — and it’s only the beginning.”
It comes ahead of a forthcoming major network upgrade, called Fusaka, which aims to improve Ethereum’s scalability. On Oct. 29, the upgrade made its way into the Hoodi testnet, the final step before its mainnet debut on Dec. 3.
The US Nasdaq stock exchange is making SEC approval of its proposal to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange a top priority, according to the exchange’s crypto chief.
“We’ll just move as fast as we can,” Nasdaq’s head of digital assets strategy, Matt Savarese, said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, when asked whether the SEC could approve the proposal this year.
“I think what we have to really evaluate where the public comments come back in and then answer and respond to the SEC questions as they come through,” Savarese said. “We hope to kind of work with them as quickly as possible,” Savarese said.
Savarese says Nasdaq isn’t “upending the system”
The proposal, submitted by Nasdaq on Sept. 8, is requesting to allow investors to buy and sell stock tokens — digital representations of shares in publicly traded companies — on the exchange.
Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is not trying to overhaul the way stocks are invested in when asked whether he expects other major exchanges to follow suit.
Nasdaq’s head of digital assets, Matt Savarese, spoke to CNBC on Thursday. Source: CNBC
“We’re not looking at upending the system; we want everyone to come along for that ride and bring tokenization more into the mainstream,” he said.
“We want to do it in that responsible investor-led way first, under the SEC rules themselves,” he added.
It was only in October that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that tokenization will “eventually eat the whole financial system.”
The crypto industry is divided on tokenized equities
Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is aiming to be an innovator in the ecosystem, noting that the exchange was the first to transition markets from paper-based trading to electronic systems.
Tokenizing stocks has been one of the most significant talking points in the crypto industry this year.
On Sept. 3, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said the company became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its equity on a major blockchain following its launch on the Solana network.
The conversation around tokenized equities has also drawn skepticism from the crypto industry.
On Oct. 1, Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, told Cointelegraph that tokenized equities will be a significant benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon to the crypto industry as others have predicted.
Hadick said that if tokenized stocks use layer-2 networks, it creates “leakage” as value and may not flow back to Ethereum or the broader crypto ecosystem as much as hoped.
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A privacy coin is headed for Wall Street, and the wrapper says everything about what happens when a technology built for discretion tries to move through the most surveilled pipes in global finance.
Grayscale’s bid to list a Zcash ETF on NYSE Arca (ticker ZCSH) marks the first serious attempt to wrap a privacy coin in the fully documented world of ETF filings, approved custodians, sanctions screening, and brokerage compliance. The entire project is set up like a stress test for a simple idea: can regulated privacy exist, or does the regulation part smother the privacy part on contact? The mechanics described in the S-3 are straightforward, with cash creations at launch, and potential in-kind redemptions down the line, but the cultural and technical baggage Zcash carries is anything but.
After starting 2025 near $30 following a long period of dormancy, ZEC spent the first half of the year grinding between $40 and $55, barely noticed outside its core community. Then the market snapped, and by November, ZEC had erupted to $699, marking one of the most dramatic rallies of any major crypto asset this year. Such a dramatic spike (+730% YTD) put privacy coins to the forefront of institutional interest and is what’s pushing investors to chase it with size.
Zcash was built to give users a choice between transparent addresses and shielded ones, using zk-SNARKs to prove validity without disclosing details. An ETF has no such spectrum. It has administrators, custodians, AP desks, and regulated venues. And because nothing in the ETF world moves without a verified identity attached, the first Zcash ETF could operate in a universe where everything is compliant, everything is screened, and none of that tells you much about the privacy that originally made ZEC matter.
The tension comes from how the ETF is designed to function. Grayscale proposes cash creations from day one. That means authorized participants send dollars, not ZEC, into the fund; the sponsor goes to market, buys ZEC, and holds it in Coinbase Custody. This setup bypasses the immediate problem of moving shielded coins through compliance desks, because cash creations don’t touch the privacy features at all. It’s a price-exposure instrument wearing a privacy-themed label. And with ZEC’s price now hundreds of dollars higher than it was when the year began, the convenience of letting someone else deal with custody, key management, and exchange risk becomes even more appealing.
The filing leaves the door open for in-kind creations later, but only if NYSE Arca’s rule-change request succeeds. Even then, APs would still face a practical hurdle: if they want to deliver or redeem ZEC, they would almost certainly need to use transparent addresses, because shielded transactions introduce audit and sanctions-screening issues that traditional financial institutions have no infrastructure to handle.
In other words, “in-kind privacy” only exists as a technical possibility, not a regulatory one. You can route the coins through the shielded pool, but no ETF administrator in the US is going to accept a batch of assets that can’t be traced and certified.
The irony lands harder when you look at how ZEC is actually used. Most on-exchange activity relies on transparent addresses. Shielded adoption is real, but concentrated among a minority of users who value private payments, identity separation, or institutional-grade confidentiality.
The ETF will never interact with that world. Coinbase Custody, as the appointed custodian, already enforces strict address-whitelisting and risk screens. It will likely hold ZEC in its more transparent form for operational clarity, maintain logs and attestations for auditors, and routinely disclose holdings the way it does for other crypto ETFs. And because ZEC at $400-plus attracts a different class of speculator than ZEC at $40, the product’s transparency bias may deepen over time rather than shrink.
The biggest mystery of ZCSH is who this product is meant to serve. “Privacy coin ETF” sounds like a contradiction until you remember that most ETF buyers don’t want to be privacy users, and just want exposure to the theme. They want the narrative potential of privacy becoming a mainstream investment category without the hassle of direct custody, view keys, or technical footguns. Hedge funds looking for asymmetric bets can justify an allocation because privacy rails are back in fashion. Retail investors get a clean way to own ZEC without touching exchanges that flag withdrawals into shielded pools. And institutions get something even simpler: compliance-safe exposure to a crypto asset from the “privacy” family, without adopting the operational posture of an actual privacy user.
This creates a strange inversion. Privacy becomes a popular investment theme, instead of the inherent property of the coin. A ZEC ETF on NYSE Arca doesn’t help anyone transact privately; it just allows them to speculate on the future importance of transacting privately. If privacy coins become infrastructural building blocks for on-chain finance, ZEC’s value could grow. If regulators take a harder line on confidentiality layers, the ETF could sit in limbo. The buyer of this ETF isn’t voting for privacy with their transactions, but their brokerage account, which is a very different gesture. And given how ZEC went from $29 in March to over $700 in November, plenty of people are willing to vote.
That’s why Grayscale’s ETF filing matters. It tests whether privacy, as a narrative, can attract regulated capital even when the underlying technology is effectively neutered by the ETF wrapper it sits in. It also probes the boundary between what a sponsor can register and what regulators will tolerate. Zcash works because it can offer optional privacy. An ETF works because it removes optionality and enforces standardization. Those two worlds do not naturally align.
And yet, there’s a reason this filing wasn’t laughed out of the room: ZEC is one of the few privacy coins that can plausibly exist in a regulated ecosystem because its architecture allows transparency. Monero’s default privacy means it won’t pass this test; ZEC at least has the flexibility to run in transparent mode and let institutions treat shielded pools as someone else’s problem.
Regulated privacy meets real compliance
The compliance stack in the filing looks like a warning label. Coinbase Custody will hold the keys, Coinbase, acting as prime broker, will handle trading, and BNY Mellon will administer the product.
Each of these institutions operates with stringent KYC, OFAC screening, and transaction-monitoring requirements. Even if shielded transactions are technically possible, nothing in this pipeline accommodates them. If the ETF ever attempts in-kind creations, APs must demonstrate provenance, risk profile, and legitimacy of the assets they deliver. Shielded transactions obscure those details, which means the practical path is transparent ZEC end-to-end.
This is the whole point from the point of view of regulators. They object to opacity in financial products, not to privacy in the abstract. As long as ZEC behaves like any other crypto asset within the ETF machine, they can sign off.
What they can’t accept is a product that leaks unverified assets into the US financial market. This means the Zcash ETF becomes a compliance-first instrument even though the underlying coin is privacy-first technology. That inversion will define how critics talk about it. Privacy advocates will say it defeats the purpose. Institutional allocators will say it’s exactly the point.
Who buys the Zcash paradox
A ZEC ETF is not for hardcore privacy maximalists. It’s for institutional or advanced investors who want to track the price of a coin associated with privacy, without engaging in private behavior. It’s for funds that don’t want operational exposure to shielded pools. It’s for traders who want liquidity, tight spreads, and a clean instrument tied to a complicated underlying idea. It’s also for the growing crowd that believes privacy infrastructure, not meme mania, is the next frontier in crypto adoption. And it’s for allocators hedging the possibility that blockchains with privacy layers end up powering enterprise use cases.
That last group may be the quiet catalyst. If institutions are expected to onboard real value onto blockchains, privacy becomes a prerequisite, not a luxury. An ETF lets them express that theme without picking winners across the entire privacy-tech landscape. ZEC becomes a stand-in for a future where discreet on-chain activity is normal.
ZCSH won’t turn Wall Street into a privacy sanctuary. It won’t move shielded pools into the center of ETF mechanics. And it certainly won’t make Zcash’s most powerful features mainstream. What it will do is normalize the idea that privacy technologies deserve a seat at the regulated table, even if that seat comes with guardrails. The product may never interact with privacy as a function, but it interacts with privacy as an investment thesis. And that alone tells you where the conversation is heading: toward a future where confidentiality becomes an institutionally priced asset class, not just a cypherpunk conviction.
A Zcash ETF won’t teach Wall Street how to use privacy. But with ZEC’s rally pulling it from penny-stock territory into one of the year’s best-performing large-caps, it may teach Wall Street that privacy isn’t going away, and that is how regulated privacy begins, paradox and all.
After 18 days at the bottom of a widely used crypto market sentiment index, the market appears to be showing early signs of improving sentiment.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures overall crypto market sentiment, posted a “Fear” score of 28 on Saturday, the first time since Nov. 10 that it hasn’t posted an “Extreme Fear” score.
The prolonged stretch near the index’s most bearish level for the majority of November, historically Bitcoin’s (BTC) best-performing month on average, did not go unnoticed by the broader crypto community.
“Extreme Fear” readings have typically marked bottoms, says trader
On Nov. 15, crypto analyst Matthew Hyland pointed out that the index was at the “most extreme fear level” of the entire cycle. “A path like this for BTC Dominance would now be max pain,” Hyland said at the time. Just days later, on Nov. 23, crypto analyst Crypto Seth said, “Extreme Fear is an understatement.”
However, crypto trader Nicola Duke said that every time extreme fear has been on the index, it has marked a “local bottom” for Bitcoin.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index posted a “Fear” score of 28 on Saturday. Source: alternative.me
Other indicators have since suggested that sentiment may be recovering. Crypto sentiment platform Santiment said on Wednesday that Bitcoin was showing “generally bullish sentiment” after Bitcoin climbed back to nearly $92,000, citing its social media bullish-to-bearish sentiment indicator.
Crypto market still appears to be in risk-off mode
Santiment said that market discussions surrounding Bitcoin on social media have focused on price volatility, and institutional activity, including ETFs and treasury purchases.
However, crypto market participants still appear to be hesitant and in risk-off mode, according to CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index, which currently sits firmly in “Bitcoin Season” with a score of 22 out of 100 — a metric that oscillates between Altcoin and Bitcoin season readings.
On Friday, Bitwise Europe’s head of research, André Dragosch, said Bitcoin’s price has been misaligned due to a misreading of the broader macroeconomic outlook, particularly growing expectations of an upcoming recession.
“The last time I saw such an asymmetric risk-reward was during COVID,” Dragosch said.
The Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty is projected to increase during the next difficulty adjustment scheduled for December 11, as hashprice, a critical metric that measures expected miner profitability per unit of computing power, sits at record lows.
Bitcoin’s next mining difficulty adjustment is expected to occur at block 927,360 at about 12:09:34 AM UTC, marginally increasing the difficulty from 149.30 trillion to 149.80 trillion, according to CoinWarz.
The most recent adjustment, which occurred on Thursday, decreased the difficulty from 152.2 trillion to 149.3 trillion, resulting in an average blocktime of about 9.97 minutes at the time of this writing, slightly below the 10-minute target.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty from 2014-2025. Source: CoinWarz
Despite the recent drop in mining difficulty, hashprice is hovering around $38.3 petahashes per second (PH/s) per day, according to Hashrate Index, up from the record low below $35 PH/s reached on November 21.
For context, a hashprice of $40 PH/s is a break-even level for miners and the point where they must consider de-energizing their machines or continuing to operate.
Bitcoin mining hashprice, a critical metric for miner profitability, sits below the $40 mark and is hovering near record lows. Source: Hashrate Index
The mining industry continues to face mounting challenges, including regulatory bans or restrictions, rising energy costs, and geopolitical tensions between the United States and China that could disrupt critical equipment supply chains.
US probes the largest manufacturer of crypto mining hardware, triggering fears of shortages
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is investigating mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain, which is based in China, to determine whether its machines can be remotely accessed or used for espionage purposes.
In 2024, US Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of crypto’s most vocal critics, suggested that ASICs could be used for spying on US military bases and sensitive national defense installations.
Bitmain is the leading manufacturer of the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) used to mine proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies. The company commands an 80% market share, according to the University of Cambridge.
Restrictions, tariffs, or sanctions imposed on the company by US officials could trigger supply chain issues for the mining industry, which is heavily reliant on Bitmain.
