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

The new year started with some positivitiy, but will it last?

Despite the several consecutive all-time highs registered in 2025, bitcoin’s price ultimately closed below its starting price, which was the first such occasion in a post-halving year.

The cryptocurrency’s price actions have been choppy and uncertain for several weeks. It dipped to a local low of $84,500 on December 19, shortly after the US CPI numbers for November came out, but quickly tightened its trading range. In the following ten days or so, it stood between $90,500 and $86,500.

It tried to take down the upper boundary on at least three occasions since then, but each attempt was met with an immediate rejection and a subsequent retracement to the lower boundary. The current business week began similarly, as BTC spiked to $90,500, where the bears stepped up and pushed it south to under $87,000.

The bulls intercepted the move and provided an immediate relief rally to $88,000. Sideways action continued in the following days, but BTC ultimately closed 2025 below $88,000, which was a 6-7% yearly decline. January 1 was expectedly a dull trading day, but bitcoin went on the offensive earlier today.

It tapped $90,000 once again, only to be stopped and driven south by a grand and a half. Nevertheless, it has managed to bounce off and now sits above $89,000. This means that it’s over 2% up weekly, but its market cap has declined by 0.6% weekly as most alts have marked bigger gains since last Friday.

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

Market Data

Market Cap: $3.110T | 24H Vol: $100B | 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 Can’t Miss

Bitcoin (BTC) Breaks History: First Post-Halving Year Ends in the Red. As explained above, BTC finished 2025 in the red. While that’s not a first, it did break history as bitcoin had never ended a post-halving year 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 due to his multiple promises. However, data from almost a year later shows that none of the larger-cap digital assets were in the green, unlike the US stock market or, even better, the precious metal industry.

Ethereum Suffered Worst Year Since 2018: 9 Red Months in 2025. The second-largest cryptocurrency also tapped a new all-time high in 2025, but its overall performance was quite the opposite. It saw nine monthly closures in the red, which made it its worst year since 2018.

Tether Confirms $779M Bitcoin Purchase Despite Weak Market Momentum. The Paolo Ardoino-led stablecoin giant continues to accumulate BTC on a frequent basis, buying 8,888.8888888 units in Q4 2025. Strategy also announced a substantial bitcoin purchase last week, while Metaplanet returned to the BTC accumulation scene after a brief hiatus.

Bitcoin Set for Range-Bound 2026: Analysts Predict Trading Between $80K and $140K. Now that 2025 is in the history books, analysts have turned to BTC’s performance in 2026. An assessment published by XWIN Research Japan predicted that the cryptocurrency will trade between $80,000 and $140,000 during the new year.

BitMine Doubles Down on Ethereum as Markets Cool into Year-End. Just like BTC, the sluggish performance of ETH has not deterred its biggest accumulator from adding more to its stash. Recent on-chain data indicated that BitMine had bought another 32,938 ETH and staked almost 120,000 tokens.