Bitcoin was trading around $90 after repeatedly failing to breach the $96,000 barrier.
The leading cryptocurrency, with an intraday minimum of $93751, did not help to push the total cryptocurrency market capitalisation up towards the highs of this cycle of approximately $4 trillion.
As of press time the market had fallen by 3.32% over the last 24 hours and was valued at $3.42 billion.
Altcoins also had a lacklustre performance, as only one out of 99 top altcoins posted double-digit increases and the majority of leading names were dressed in red for Christmas.
Altcoin Season Index at 46 showed that the interest in altcoins had decreased due to Bitcoin’s bad performance, and also because of a slight bearish market sentiment.
Over 57% of current market capitalisation is accounted for by the apex cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin will it rise again?
Santa Rally, as traders call it, is usually a time of market gains around Christmas. But, this year the rally seems to have been running behind schedule.
The Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s hawkish comments last week have been cited as the main reason Bitcoin has had difficulty breaking through the six-figure barrier again.
Since BTC reached its all-time-high (ATH) at $108,135, there’s been a rise in the number of long-term traders taking profits.
Analysts warned that BTC could be entering a correction period, despite the fact that major companies like MicroStrategy, Japan’s MetaPlanet and El Salvador, as well as whale and El Salvador investors continued to buy BTC at a discount.
It’s also important to remember that the experts are always reminding us of how such corrections can be healthy and lead to long-term rallies.
Bitcoin’s previous performance in bull markets also painted a similar image, since the bellwether has been known to make corrections of up to 20% following a new ATH.
Rekt capital, a prominent analyst on X told over 522k of his followers that BTC recently confirmed a Bearish Engulfing Candlestick Formation on the Weekly Chart after losing a critical support level.
Analysts believe that this is a sign of a “multi-week correction” for the crypto.
According to Jelle Eyed (a pseudonymous financial analyst), who cited historical prices, this correction phase may last for a few weeks.
Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, offered an alternative bullish view via a historical pattern.
The crypto-market has historically had the most successful day, and the biggest daily gain, on December 26th. This is only three days from now. He floated the notion of a possible “Xmas relief bounce”.
However, Trader Josh Rager suggested that Bitcoin might drop as low as $75,000 and noted it was in line with typical pullbacks of 30% seen during bull markets.
As of the time this article was written, BTC sold for $93,260. The price had fallen 2.1% over the last 24 hours.
The top altcoin gainers at the time of press were:
Aave
AAVE, the decentralised money-market protocol Aave, was the top performing project of the day. AAVE has risen 12.4% in the last 24 hours.
CoinMarketCap
The token’s trading volume has increased by over 64.30% in the last 24 hours, confirming its market capitalization of $5 billion.
The price increase was not due to any particular cause, but rather a general recovery in the sector. AAVE’s pricing was also aided by strong technicals and retail purchases.
Analysts expect the price of altcoin to rise if Bitcoin continues trading sideways over the next few days. It could even surpass its previous high of $661.69 in the first quarter 2025.
Virtuals Protocol
The native token of the AI launchpad virtual s protocol VIRTUAL has gained over 8% within the last 24 hours, reaching an intraday peak at $2.72.
CoinMarketCap
The altcoin had a capitalisation market of approximately $2.5 billion, with daily trading volumes of just over $300 million. This was up by 29.70% from the previous day.
VIRTUAL has continued to profit from AI agent hype despite the fact that there is no protocol development at the moment.
The token price is pushed up by the demand generated when users lock their altcoins on the platform.
Some analysts believe that the current prices are a great entry level.
The long-term targets of the tokens range between $8 and $10.
The token’s price at the time of writing was $2.58.
Raydium
In the last 24 hours Raydium (RAY), which reached a high of $4.66, was up by 6.7%. The total value of its market cap was over $1.3billion.
CoinMarketCap
Decentralised exchange native tokens were also one of those who benefited from the rebound of the defi markets.
Meme coins have led to significant price increases for RAY on the Solana dex.
The popularity of Pump.fun, a popular meme coin dispenser that allows users to launch tokens on their site has contributed to the increase in activity.
Pump.fun lets users create meme coins using the Solana Blockchain. Once a token’s value reaches $69,000 in market capitalization, Raydium automatically adds liquidity.
The surge in activity of meme coins has led to higher trading volume on Raydium. This boost in fee revenue for the platform and the staking reward system encourages more traders and investors to purchase and stake RAY.
Analysts expect that the demand for meme coins will continue to grow, potentially driving its price up.
The post Bitcoin Correction: AAVE, Virtual, and Ray lead Altcoin Gains could be updated as new information becomes available
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