Bitcoin prices slipped on Monday after rising briefly in early Asian trading, extending last week\u2019s range-bound movement as investor risk appetite remained fragile amid escalating tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin fell 1% to $90,166.0 by 09:25 ET.<\/p>\n
Broader market sentiment was also pressured by ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and caution ahead of major U.S. economic releases later this week.<\/p>\n
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Investor appetite for risk assets weakened after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank had been subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice and could face a potential criminal indictment related to renovations at the Fed\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
Powell suggested the probe was politically motivated, citing repeated pressure from the Trump administration to sharply cut interest rates.<\/p>\n
The comments triggered declines in U.S. stock futures and prompted a shift toward safe-haven assets such as gold, limiting upside for cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n
Markets also remain wary as Trump is expected to name Powell\u2019s successor in the near term, raising concerns over the future independence of the central bank.<\/p>\n
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Geopolitical uncertainty continued to weigh on sentiment. Trump reiterated demands for U.S. control over Greenland, amplifying concerns after Washington\u2019s recent incursion in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Tensions between China and Japan showed little sign of easing, while markets continued to monitor nationwide protests in Iran and ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
These factors added to broader risk aversion, keeping Bitcoin under pressure.<\/p>\n
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Bitcoin lagged gains in technology stocks, which benefited from renewed optimism around artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
While Bitcoin has historically traded in line with tech shares, analysts noted that this correlation has weakened over the past year.<\/p>\n
A lack of crypto-specific catalysts has left Bitcoin struggling for direction through late 2025 and early 2026.<\/p>\n
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Standard Chartered said 2026 could mark a turning point for Ethereum relative to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n
Analyst Geoff Kendrick said weaker Bitcoin performance has pressured dollar-based crypto forecasts, prompting cuts to Ethereum\u2019s absolute price outlook for 2026 through 2028.<\/p>\n
However, Kendrick said Ethereum\u2019s relative fundamentals have improved, with expectations that the ETH-BTC ratio could gradually return to its 2021 highs.<\/p>\n
Kendrick highlighted continued accumulation by Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest Ethereum-focused corporate treasury, even as ETF inflows and broader corporate demand have slowed.<\/p>\n
He also pointed to Ethereum\u2019s leading role in stablecoins, tokenised real-world assets, and decentralised finance as long-term structural strengths.<\/p>\n
Planned increases in Ethereum\u2019s layer-one throughput are also seen as supportive, with higher network capacity historically linked to higher market capitalisation.<\/p>\n
While Kendrick lowered his end-2026 Ethereum price forecast to $7,500, he introduced a longer-term target of $40,000 by the end of 2030.<\/p>\n
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Altcoins moved mostly lower alongside Bitcoin, remaining within recent trading ranges.<\/p>\n
Ether slipped about 1% to $3,082.01, while XRP fell more than 2%.<\/p>\n
Solana rose 1.1%, while Cardano and BNB declined over 2% each.<\/p>\n
Among meme tokens, Dogecoin dropped 3.4%, while the $TRUMP token fell 4%.<\/p>\n
Markets are now focused on U.S. consumer price index data for December, due Tuesday, which could influence near-term interest rate expectations.<\/p>\n
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Bitcoin prices slipped on Monday after rising briefly in early Asian trading, extending last week\u2019s range-bound movement as investor risk\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":104809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[3925,34354,22388,3927,22400,6817,33979],"class_list":["post-104808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-price-today","tag-btc","tag-crypto","tag-eth","tag-ethereum","tag-top-stories"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}