Some catching up to do
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 16th December 2025.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Bitcoin Gained 20% Since Biden Era Ended — Oddly Paltry, Some Argue
When Donald Trump was elected to a second (non-consecutive) term as U.S. President back in November of 2024, it ended an era deemed entirely unfriendly to crypto. Since the election that teed up a more loving regime, Bitcoin has gained about 20%. For at least one analyst/pundit, that bump isn’t nearly enough.
Ran Neuner, host of Crypto Banter, highlighted a glaring disconnect between fundamentals and prices. According to Neuner, per BeInCrypto, 2025 had all the makings of a bull market, including an abundance of liquidity, a pro-crypto U.S. government and heavy accumulation by corporations and ETFs. Gold hit new highs as did silver and equities. And despite all of this, Neuner lamented, “we are ending 2025 lower and only 20% from where we were with Biden.”
Neuner sees the crypto sector as either caught in the throes of some structural wet blanket (a hidden mechanism suppressing prices?) or, alternatively, crypto is setting up for “the mother of all catch-up trades,” as markets eventually revert to equilibrium.
What's down
Largest, Most Liquid Coins Lagging
Crypto’s current malaise runs deep. Some three-fourths of the Top 100 coins are trailing key multi-week and multi-month moving averages. Among the biggest laggards are Bitcoin, down 31% from its ATH of $126,080 reached on October 6, as well as ETH, SOL, BNB and XRP.
“In other words, the biggest coins are flashing red across the charts, dragging the entire sector down,” CoinDesk said.
That the most institutionally traded digital assets are flashing bearish signals would seem to suggest investors still have their qualms about crypto, particularly when it comes to smaller, less liquid altcoins.
By contrast, the Nasdaq 100 index contains only 29 stocks trading below 50-day and 200-day SMAs, underscoring the “still-bullish market breadth of technology stocks,” CoinDesk said.
What's next
It's The Most Forecast-Full Time Of The Year
In a recently published 2026 look-ahead piece, Grayscale analysts have forecast a banner year brewing. “Bitcoin’s price will likely reach a new all-time high in the first half of the year, in our view,” Grayscale said.
The pioneering digital asset manager is basing its thesis on macro tailwinds and regulatory clarity.
Other bold predictions are pouring in as the holidays sneak up on us. Fundstrat research chief Tom Lee and longtime gold bug (and BTC critic) Peter Schiff took turns pounding their respective tables during appearances at a recent blockchain industry event. Lee for his part has said he thinks BTC is going to $250K within a few months; Schiff unsurprisingly slagged BTC as “worthless.”
Nic Puckrin, co-founder of Coin Bureau, noting BTC’s slide toward its 100-week moving average, cautioned investors about the largest crypto possibly dipping below $80K. It’s a scenario rooted in concerns about an AI bubble alongside Federal Reserve leadership uncertainty, not to mention year-end tax-loss selling.
Canvassing economists and traders, BeInCrypto found a growing consensus regarding the eventuality of an extremely volatile reckoning, or a “brutal repricing,” but one that in theory, owing to fundamentals/tailwinds, could swing to the upside, potentially defining a new identity for crypto.
“It is anybody’s guess whether crypto is broken or merely transforming,” BeInCrypto said.
