Leading cryptocurrencies fell Thursday after a festive surge on Christmas gave way to profit-taking.
| Cryptocurrency | Gains +/- | Price (Recorded at 7:30 p.m. ET) |
| Bitcoin BTC/USD | -3.69% | $95,658.87 |
| Ethereum ETH/USD | -4.37% | $3,338.32 |
| Dogecoin DOGE/USD | -6.97% | $0.3116 |
What Happened: After teasing the $100,000 mark on Christmas, Bitcoin witnessed a steep decline, falling to an intraday low of $95,170.
Ethereum dropped to the $3,300 region following the to-and-from movement between $3,440 and $3,510.
Trading volumes for both currencies rose, indicating that traders returned from their Christmas break to book profits.
Over $270 million was liquidated from the market in the last 24 hours, with long liquidations accounting for $200 million.
Bitcoin's Open Interest increased by 0.97% in the last 24 hours. The majority of them were short positions, as evidenced by a drop in the Long/Short Ratio.
That said, nearly $760 million in short positions risked liquidation if Bitcoin rebounds to $100,000.
The market sentiment was "Greed," according to the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.
Top Gainers (24-Hours)
| Cryptocurrency | Gains +/- | Price (Recorded at 7:30 p.m. ET) |
| Bitget Token (BGB) | +29.39% | $7.48 |
| FTX Token (FTT) | +3.98% | $5.77 |
| Hyperliquid (HYPE) | +3.43% | $27.35 |
The global cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $3.31 trillion, following a contraction of 3.88% in the last 24 hours.
Trading resumed on Wall Street after the Christmas holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average squeezed out a narrow gain of 0.07% to close at 43,325.80. The S&P 500 slid 0.04%, ending at 6,037.59, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.05% at 20,020.36.
U.S. jobless claims for the week ending Dec. 21 came at 219,000, lower than analyst estimates of 224,000.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield remained broadly unchanged at 4.587% after pushing beyond 4.6% early morning.
See More: Best Cryptocurrency Scanners
Analyst Notes: Influential cryptocurrency analyst and trader Ali Martinez called attention to Bitcoin dipping below its "most significant" support level at $97,300.
"So, for the bearish outlook to be invalidated, BTC must reclaim this critical area of support and, more importantly, sustain a daily close above $100,000," Martinez stated.
As it turned out, the leading cryptocurrency failed to reach these predictions, remaining stuck in the $95,000 range.
Bitcoin's Christmas rally and subsequent retrace made it one of the top trending tokens on social media, according to on-chain analytics firm Santiment.
Discussions about its upcoming price moves, such as a climb to $100,000 or a drop to $90,000, dominated social media.
Image via Shutterstock
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