Bitcoin’s failed attempt to recover above $90,000 has eroded investor confidence, sending bearish sentiment flying.
Since the start of 2026, Bitcoin has produced higher highs and higher lows, signaling a bullish market structure. Its steady ascent pushed it to $97,000 on January 15; at the time, Myriad users placed an 87% chance on its next move carrying it to $100,000.
In total, $2 billion worth of positions were culled in a short time due to the whipsaw and Bitcoin’s increasingly macro asset behavior in 2026.
What’s driving Bitcoin’s decline now?“In the short term, Bitcoin’s weakness is driven by a clear absence of interest from large players at current levels,” Georgii Verbitskii, Founder of a non-custodial Web3 platform, TYMIO, told Decrypt.
Due to the influence of geopolitical uncertainty, investors are defensive with their capital, he explained.
Derivatives data reflect this defensiveness.
“Even strong altcoins are struggling, like Avalanche, which is down roughly 66% since September, despite having worked with major institutions such as JPMorgan and WisdomTree,” Ryan Li, CEO and Co-founder of AI-driven crypto insights platform Surf, told Decrypt. “This shows how unforgiving the market has become, especially for altcoins.”
The second-order effects come from gold being in the spotlight, which has led to it absorbing most of the attention as the primary hedge—leaving Bitcoin sidelined, Verbitskii said.
He tempered his outlook, suggesting that this is not a regime change caused by panic, “but rather a period of risk repricing where Bitcoin is not the preferred asset.” But this outlook could change with the reintroduction of demand from larger players. Until then, he expects sentiment to remain uncertain.
