Metaplanet Resumes BTC Accumulation, Strategy and Tether Buy More, but Bitcoin Ended 2025 in the Red: Weekly Crypto Summary

The new year started with some positivity, but will it stay that way?

The cryptocurrency’s price action has been choppy and uncertain for several weeks. It fell to a local low of $84,500 on December 19, shortly after the US CPI figures for November came out, but quickly narrowed its trading range. Over the next ten days, the price was between $90,500 and $86,500.

Since then, it has attempted to take down the upper bound at least three times, but each attempt was immediately rejected and then returned to the lower bound. The current business week started similarly, with BTC spiking to $90,500 before the bears stepped up and pushed south below $87,000.

The bulls intercepted this move and provided an immediate relief to $88,000. The sideways action continued over the following days, but BTC ultimately closed 2025 below $88,000, which was a 6-7% annual decline. January 1 was expected to be a dull trading day, but bitcoin went on the attack earlier today.

It again made $90,000, but was stopped at a thousand and a half dollars and driven south. Nevertheless, it has managed to recover and is now above $89,000. This means that the price is up over 2% weekly, but the market cap is down 0.6% weekly as most alts have posted bigger gains since last Friday.

These include ETH, BNB, SOL and ADA, all of which are up 5-6%. DOGE has risen by more than 9%, as has ZEC. XMR, HYPE and BCH are among the few alts that are in the red on a weekly basis.

Market data

Market Cap: $3,110T | 24H volume: $100 billion | BTC dominance: 57.1%

BTC: $89,300 (+2.3%) | ETH: $3,080 (+5.5%) | XRP: $1.92 (+3.8%)

This week’s Crypto headlines you shouldn’t miss

Bitcoin (BTC) breaks history: the first year after the halving ends in the red. As explained above, BTC 2025 ended in the red. While this isn’t a first, it does break history, as Bitcoin had never ended a year after the halving with a negative performance until now.

The $10,000 Trump Trade: What Actually Made Money Since Inauguration Day. Trump re-entered the White House on the white crypto horse because of his many promises. However, data from almost a year later shows that none of the larger digital assets were in the green, unlike the US stock market or, even better, the precious metals industry.

Ethereum had its worst year since 2018: 9 red months in 2025. The second-largest cryptocurrency also hit a new all-time high in 2025, but its overall performance was the exact opposite. Nine monthly closures were in the red, making it the worst year since 2018.

Tether Confirms Bitcoin Purchase of $779 Million Despite Weak Market Momentum. The Paolo Ardoino-led stablecoin giant continues to regularly accumulate BTC, buying 8,888.8888888 units in the fourth quarter of 2025. Strategy also announced a substantial bitcoin purchase last week, while Metaplanet returned to the BTC accumulation scene after a brief hiatus.

Bitcoin Poised for Rangebound 2026: Analysts Predict Trading Between $80,000 and $140,000. With 2025 in the history books, analysts have focused on BTC’s performance in 2026. An assessment published by XWIN Research Japan predicted the cryptocurrency to trade between $80,000 and $140,000 during the new year.

BitMine doubles the value of Ethereum as markets cool towards year-end. Like BTC, ETH’s sluggish performance hasn’t stopped the largest accumulator from adding more to its supply. Recent on-chain data indicated that BitMine had purchased an additional 32,938 ETH and staked almost 120,000 tokens.