Bitcoin pushed toward $95,000 in the hours before the Federal Reserve’s Dec. 18 meeting, then retreated to the $92,000 zone amid Jerome Powell’s confirmation of a mixed-to-bearish stance for 2026 and delicate on-chain structure.
The Fed delivered an expected quarter-point cut, bringing the target range to 4.25%-4.50%, but Chair Jerome Powell spent the press conference reminding markets that policy now sits “in a plausible range of neutral” and that the committee is “well positioned to wait to see how the economy evolves.”
Bitcoin held most of its Dec. 9 rebound but failed to reclaim higher ground. The macro explanation is straightforward: the Fed delivered the cut markets expected, but refused to validate the faster 2026 easing cycle.
The on-chain story reveals why Bitcoin lacks the internal strength to convert that relief into a sustained move higher.
As Glassnode reported, Bitcoin enters the week confined within a structurally fragile range, bounded by the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis at $102,700 and the True Market Mean at $81,300.
The price has stabilized marginally above the True Market Mean, but the mechanics beneath that stability tell a darker story.
Unrealized losses continue to expand, realized losses are climbing to their highest levels since the FTX collapse, and spending by long-term investors remains elevated.
The market is operating in a regime where time works against holders, making unrealized losses harder to endure and increasing the probability that those losses get realized into any price strength.
The Relative Unrealized Loss, measured as a 30-day simple moving average, has climbed to 4.4% from nearly two years spent below 2%.
That shift marks the transition from a euphoric phase to one defined by stress and hesitation. More tellingly, the Entity-Adjusted Realized Loss has reached $555 million per day, even as Bitcoin rebounded from its Nov. 22 low to the $92,000 zone.
Top buyers are capitulating into strength rather than holding through the recovery, a behavioral pattern that anchors any rally attempt and prevents clean momentum from building.
Fed’s 2026 guidance removes the macro tailwind
The December cut was never the real question. The market had braced for what Powell’s 2026 guidance would look like, and the Summary of Economic Projections gave a clear answer.
The median dot for 2026 stayed essentially unchanged from September, still pointing to just one 25-basis-point cut next year and a neutral longer-run estimate around 3%.
That outcome matches the pre-meeting fear that the Fed wouldn’t open the door to a more aggressive path, even as it delivered a token cut in December.
Powell’s language reinforced that caution. He flagged that inflation “remains somewhat elevated,” that near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and that “everyone at the table agrees inflation is too high.”
He noted that the committee’s two goals of stable prices and maximum employment are “a bit in tension,” and that “there is no risk-free policy path.”
When asked about the January meeting, Powell said the Fed hasn’t made a decision and that “some people feel we should stop here and wait.” This might mean that the market shouldn’t count on a smooth, predictable cutting cycle.
The Fed also announced it will begin purchasing $40 billion in Treasury bills over the next 30 days, starting Dec. 12, with the pace potentially elevated for a few months.
Powell explicitly shut down the bullish interpretation, framing the purchases as reserve management with “no implication for the stance of monetary policy.” These are operational purchases to manage reserve levels, not a new quantitative easing program.
Markets that treat this as a dovish catalyst are misreading the signal.
Demand has thinned across spot, futures, and ETF flows
The macro backdrop removes one tailwind, while the on-chain and off-chain demand picture removes another.
US Bitcoin ETFs logged another quiet week, with the three-day average of net flows staying consistently below zero.
This extends the cooling trend that began in late November and marks a clear departure from the robust inflow regime that supported price appreciation earlier in the year.
Redemptions have been steady across several major issuers, noting a more risk-averse stance among institutional allocators.
The spot market now operates with a thinner demand buffer, reducing immediate buy-side support and leaving the price more vulnerable to macro catalysts and volatility shocks.
Spot relative volume is near the lower bound of its 30-day range, as trading activity has weakened through November and into December.
The contraction in volume reflects defensive positioning, with fewer liquidity-driven flows available to absorb volatility or sustain directional moves.
Futures markets show limited appetite for leverage, with open interest failing to rebuild meaningfully and funding rates pinned near neutral.
Funding hovered around zero and was slightly negative during the week, highlighting the continued retreat in speculative long positioning.
With derivatives activity subdued, price discovery tilts toward spot flows and macro catalysts rather than speculative expansion.
Long-term holders are taking profit in the rebound
The realized loss from top buyers tells only half the story. Long-term holders, those who have held coins for more than one year, increased their realized profits to more than $1 billion per day during the recent bounce, peaking at a new all-time high of over $1.3 billion.
The combination of time-driven capitulation by recent buyers and heavy profit-taking by seasoned investors explains why the market failed to hold the push toward $95,000 and retreated to the $92,000 zone.
The key upper thresholds to reclaim remain the 0.75 cost-basis quantile at $95,000, followed by the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis at $102,700.
Yet, despite this selling pressure, the price has stabilized above the True Market Mean, signaling persistent and patient demand absorbing distribution.
If seller exhaustion begins to emerge, this underlying buy pressure could drive another attempt at the 0.75 cost-basis quantile and potentially the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis.
The question is whether that demand can materialize before time-driven stress forces more capitulation from holders caught at higher prices.
Options markets reflect the same cautious positioning. Short-dated implied volatility jumped ahead of the FOMC meeting, with one-week tenor on the 20-Delta call rising by roughly ten volatility points, while longer maturities stayed flat.
The 25-delta skew climbed to roughly 11% in the one-week tenor, indicating a clear pickup in demand for short-dated downside insurance.
Weekly flow data shows premiums bought dominating total notional flow, with a slight lead from puts.
Traders are buying volatility, not selling it, reflecting hedging and convexity-seeking behavior rather than directional speculation.
The true test is January
The Fed’s January meeting will clarify whether December’s cut was the last move for a while or the start of a slower easing path.
Powell’s comment that the committee will “get a great deal of data before January” and that they’re looking at the data with “a skeptical eye” sets a high bar for another cut.
Bitcoin’s retreat from $95,000 back to the $92,000 zone isn’t about weakness in crypto-specific demand.
It’s about the Fed removing the macro tailwind that would drive a clean breakout, while on-chain data reveals a market structure too fragile to generate momentum on its own.
The upside is that Bitcoin didn’t fully give back the Dec. 9 rebound. The downside is that the next leg higher requires either a dovish surprise from the Fed or a reset in on-chain dynamics where realized losses begin to decline, and long-term holders step back from distribution.
Until then, Bitcoin trades in a range defined by patient institutional demand absorbing distribution from earlier cohorts, with the True Market Mean acting as the most probable bottom-formation zone and the 0.75 cost-basis quantile at $95,000 serving as immediate resistance.
The market is structurally fragile, macro conditions are neutral at best, and time works against holders who entered at elevated levels.