Now That Bitcoin is Facing a Real Test, What’s The Next Big Thing?
Bitcoin USD slid to $93,029 over the weekend, erasing every inch of this year’s progress and dragging the market back to where it stood on January 1. Three cheers for Donald Trump, the “Crypto President!”
Meanwhile, it’s recently been found out that like Jeremy Rubin were chatting with serial pedophile and political blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein. What the hell’s going on here?
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Even Monday’s weak bounce into the mid-$95,000s did little to steady BTC; everything. This was not the year traders were promised.
Trump pledged a crypto-friendly renaissance, a national Bitcoin USD reserve, and, inevitably, corporations shoving BTC onto balance sheets. Instead, the landscape has been carved up by tariff fights, a 43-day government shutdown, and a series of violent pullbacks that have threatened a .
99Bitcoins analysts have pointed to heavy profit-taking from early as another drag on momentum. According to analysis from Capriole Investments, activity from wallets untouched for more than seven years, with several transfers in the $100 Mn to $500 Mn range coming out of pre-2018 addresses.
DISCOVER:
The pattern spooked traders who took the moves as proof that early holders were cashing out.
BREAKING
A whale is shorting right now.
Position Size: $143.6 Million Liquidation Price: $98,347
— Max Crypto (@MaxCrypto)
Altcoins are even deeper in the red. Ethereum and Solana are down 7.9 percent and 28.3 percent, respectively, since the start of the year.
A look across major data dashboards paints the same picture:
: BTC down 25 percent from ATH
: Long-term holder distribution rising, but within historical norms
Crypto Fear & Greed Index: Back in extreme fear territory
DISCOVER:
Are We Getting a 2026 Boom or Not?
Crypto Fear and Greed Chart
All time1y1m1w24h
Despite the turmoil, institutional flows into spot Bitcoin ETFs remain positive on a monthly basis, signaling that traditional investors haven’t abandoned the Q4/2026 bull market thesis.
The biggest debate now is whether the four-year Bitcoin cycle still applies in a world of ETFs, corporate treasuries, and regulatory clarity. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan thinks the answer is yes yet shifted forward.
“I think the underlying fundamentals are just so sound,” Hougan said. “Stablecoins, tokenization, institutional investment… those forces are too big to keep down.”
Hougan believes the real breakout begins in 2026, not 2025 because the expected late-2025 rally never materialized.
DISCOVER:
Meanwhile, Zcash Breaks From the Top Rope: Is ZEC The Best Q4 Altcoin?
While Bitcoin was bleeding,
DogecoinDOGE$0.16261.73%DogecoinDOGEPrice$0.16261.73% /24hVolume in 24h$2.03BPrice 7dZcashZEC$677.754.01%ZcashZECPrice$677.754.01% /24hVolume in 24h$4.34BPrice 7d
was one of the only assets climbing. ZEC is up 21 percent in the past week and remains one of the best-performing coins of 2025, helped by the Winklevoss-backed Cypherpunk Technologies beginning to aggressively accumulate supply.
ZEC has a lot of things going for it and looks to be one of the standout altcoins in Q4:
Minor resistance: $688
Critical breakout level: $748
A daily close above $748 sends Zcash toward $1,010, then $1,332, matching Fibonacci extensions and its three-month trend, up more than 250 percent.
Bitcoin will come back. But the irrationality among altcoins has finally caught up and that’s why this market is failing.
EXPLORE:
Key Takeaways
Bitcoin USD slid to $93,029 over the weekend, erasing every inch of this year’s progress and dragging the market back.
The irrationality among altcoins has finally caught up and that’s why this market is failing.
BREAKING 
