Bitcoin traded below $90,000 on Dec. 23 as thin Christmas holiday liquidity, a rally in precious metals and an upcoming record options expiry weighed on the market, BlockBeats reports. Around 300,000 BTC options contracts worth about $23.7B—representing more than half of Deribit's total bitcoin open interest—are set to expire Friday. Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Pequignot said the combined BTC and ETH options expiry will reach $28.5B, describing it as record-breaking and roughly double last year's size, with analysts warning the expiry could amplify price swings.

Chinese crypto traders are divided over Bitcoin's near-term direction, with some concerned the $90,000 resistance will prove difficult to breach and the market could enter a bear-phase correction, Greeks.live researcher Adam wrote on social media on Dec. 23, BlockBeats reports. Traders are monitoring downside pressure from pre-Christmas liquidity depletion, while persistent squeezing of leveraged long positions is adding to market swings. Overall volatility has dropped to historically low levels.

Bitcoin extended its decline during U.S. trading hours on Dec. 23, with traders expressing disappointment at the weakness, Greeks.live researcher Adam said in a social media post cited by BlockBeats. He identified $86,000 as key support tested repeatedly over the past five weeks, and highlighted $93,000 and $88,000 as short-term reference levels.

BlackRock designated Bitcoin as the most important investment theme for 2025 at a high-profile investment summit in New York on Dec. 22, 2025, financefeeds reports. The head of its iShares division outlined a strategy placing Bitcoin alongside U.S. Treasuries and 'Tech Seven Giants' stocks as the three pillars of a modern diversified portfolio. BlackRock's 2025 thesis frames Bitcoin as 'digital gold' within a 'macro mirror' view, arguing its performance increasingly reflects concerns over sovereign debt and currency devaluation, and that institutional investors are seeking non-correlated assets outside the traditional banking system. Financefeeds added the shift could culminate in 2026 with income-oriented products such as a Bitcoin premium income ETF that aims to generate returns via covered call strategies, moving the debate from 'why hold Bitcoin' to 'how to optimize Bitcoin positions'.

A Bitcoin whale address known as "终极空头" closed BTC short positions worth about $4.35M in a five-hour window on December 23, locking in roughly $1.17M in profit, Coinbob address tracking data show. The trader has executed five similar profit-taking moves at local lows since November without reopening shorts, reducing total BTC short exposure by about $93M from a late-October peak of $136M and closing around $57M this month. The address still holds approximately $43.63M in BTC shorts with unrealized gains of $12.2M (558%), an average entry of $111,500 and a liquidation level near $102,300, with take-profit orders placed in the $67,200–$76,200 range since May 9 and funding fee settlements generating around $9.61M in additional profit.

Bitcoin briefly rose above $90,000 on Dec. 23 before retreating to around $87,000, and funding rates on major centralized and decentralized exchanges have shifted back toward a broadly bearish stance, Coinglass data show. Only BTC and ETH contract pairs on Binance and Bitget are still showing neutral funding, while platforms such as OKX and Bybit have seen rates fall into bearish territory. Funding rates on perpetual contracts are a fee mechanism between long and short traders designed to keep contract prices close to spot; a 0.01% rate is viewed as the baseline, readings above 0.01% indicate a generally bullish market, and levels below 0.005% signal broadly bearish positioning.

VanEck said on Dec. 23 that Bitcoin 90-day forward returns are positive 65% of the time after hashrate declines, compared to 54% when hashrate rises, citing data since 2014. Network hashrate fell 4% in the month through Dec. 15, marking the biggest drop since April 2024, the report said.

Bitcoin briefly rebounded toward $90,000 on December 23, but analysts cited by BlockBeats argue the move does not yet mark a durable trend reversal. CoinGlass data show Bitcoin is down more than 22% in the fourth quarter, putting 2024 on track for one of its weakest Q4 performances since 2018, even as total crypto market capitalization has reclaimed the $3 trillion threshold. Several analysts attribute the bounce mainly to technical correction after prolonged declines rather than fresh capital inflows, and FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said the current pattern is "not a real recovery," with only modest sentiment improvement. During Asian trading hours, Bitcoin hovered near $88,000, about 30% below its 2025 peak, while major tokens such as XRP, ETH, SOL, ADA and DOGE posted small gains and AAVE fell roughly 7% in 24 hours amid governance disputes.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $142.2 million in net outflows on Dec. 23, marking the third consecutive day of withdrawals, Farside data show. BITB led outflows at $35.5 million, followed by HODL at $33.6 million, GBTC at $29 million, Grayscale BTC at $25.4 million, ARKB at $21.4 million, and FBTC at $3.8 million. IBIT posted a net inflow of $6 million.