Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC-USD Stuck Near $89,000 as Market Eyes $74,000 Downside Target

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) pinned below $90,000 as macro shock collides with a crowded trade

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is trading in the high-$88,000s to low-$89,000s after a six-session slide that has erased almost 10% from the recent peak near $98,000. Price has spent the last sessions oscillating between roughly $87,800 and $89,800, failing to reclaim the psychologically important $90,000 handle and confirming that the market is treating BTC-USD as a high-beta risk asset rather than a defensive hedge. The move comes against a backdrop of Trump’s tariff threats tied to Greenland, a sharp repricing in global bonds, record-high gold near $4,900 and silver above $90, and a visible “Sell America” rotation out of U.S. risk assets and the dollar.

Greenland, tariffs and the ‘Sell America’ rotation driving BTC-USD lower

The immediate macro catalyst is the Greenland saga. Trump’s threat to impose a 10% tariff, escalating toward 25%, on multiple European countries that oppose a U.S. acquisition of Greenland has pushed U.S.–EU relations toward a trade confrontation. European officials have openly discussed deploying the EU “anti-coercion” tool, effectively a “trade bazooka” that can restrict imports, exports and market access. That threat set off a classic risk-off move: investors dumped U.S. equities, Treasuries and the dollar, bought gold and silver, and reduced exposure to high-beta pockets such as BTC-USD.

Over the last week, Bitcoin has dropped from just under $98,000 to around $89,000, a slide of roughly 9–10%. That decline has mirrored the equity drawdown: the S&P 500 shed about 2.1% in its worst day since October, while the CBOE Volatility Index spiked to year-to-date highs. Bitcoin did not decouple; it traded almost tick-for-tick with U.S. risk sentiment, confirming that in the current regime it behaves like a U.S. growth asset, not an independent store of value.

At the same time, gold has exploded higher, trading around $4,842 and briefly approaching $4,900, with silver pushing above $90. Those numbers tell you where nervous capital is parking: precious metals, not BTC-USD, are wearing the safe-haven crown in this phase. That shift is reinforced by commentary warning that the global system may be entering a “new phase of financial conflict”, with geopolitical disputes increasingly expressed via tariffs, capital restrictions and financial sanctions. In that framework, crypto sits squarely on the risk side of the ledger.

Bond shock from Japan and the U.S. reinforces risk-off pressure on BTC-USD

Macro stress is not confined to tariffs. Japanese 10-year government bond yields have jumped to around 2.29%, a level not seen since 1999. That spike has shaken the carry-trade complex and tightened global liquidity at the margin. In the U.S., the 10-year Treasury yield briefly pushed to about 4.30% before easing to the 4.28–4.29% area, its highest closing zone since late August. Higher risk-free yields raise the hurdle rate for speculative assets and compress the relative appeal of non-yielding instruments like BTC-USD.

This dual bond shock – JGBs near 2.3%, U.S. 10-year near 4.3% – is exactly the environment in which leverage is unwound and convex risk assets are sold first. The result has been synchronized pressure on stocks, crypto and parts of the credit complex. Bitcoin’s slide below $90,000 sits squarely inside that macro rotation away from duration and high-beta exposure.

Flows and liquidations: ETF outflows and $1.7 billion wiped from crypto leverage

Under the hood, the flow picture around BTC-USD has turned decisively negative. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have just posted back-to-back large redemptions: roughly $394.7 million in outflows on Friday followed by about $483.4 million on Tuesday, a combined drain of nearly $880 million and the largest single-day outflow since early January. Separately, other flow trackers show around $480–$500 million pulled from Bitcoin-linked products over the last two sessions alone.

On the derivatives side, roughly $1.7 billion of crypto positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, a figure that captures how much leverage was embedded in the system. That kind of forced deleveraging is textbook late-stage selloff behavior: initial macro shock hits, price breaks key levels, stops trigger, margin calls follow, and automated liquidations accelerate the move.

At the same time, crypto-related equities have come under pressure. Coinbase stock has dropped around 6%, Circle about 8%, “Strategy” – the listed company that just spent $2.1 billion to buy 22,305 BTC – is off roughly 8%, and Bitmine is down about 9%. That pattern shows that investors are not only selling BTC-USD but also de-risking across the broader crypto equity complex, even as some corporates use the dip to increase their treasuries.

BTC-USD price structure: from $126,199 peak to sub-$90,000 consolidation

Technically, BTC-USD is correcting from an all-time high near $126,199 reached in October. Using the April low at $74,508 as a base, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of that rally sits around $94,253. That level has now been lost decisively: Bitcoin closed below $94,253 on Sunday and then slid another 5.6% over the next two sessions.

More importantly, BTC-USD has also broken below the 50-day exponential moving average near $92,123 and dropped under the previously reclaimed $90,000 consolidation ceiling. That $90,000 band now flips from support into resistance. Intraday, price has printed a low around $87,895 and is gravitating around the midpoint of a horizontal range at approximately $87,787, which is acting as the first short-term support pivot.

A separate short-term snapshot shows BTC-USD trading at about $88,626 during its sixth straight down session, with only a minor 0.2% intraday bounce. Another price feed has Bitcoin around $89,182, down about 2.3% over the last 24 hours, while some spot quotations show $89,804–$89,555 with intraday gains under 1%. All of these data points tell the same story: the market is stuck just below $90,000, with repeated failures to reclaim that psychological line.

Immediate support and resistance: the $87,787–$85,569 band versus $90,000–$98,000

On the downside, the first level that matters is the midpoint of the parallel channel around $87,787. A decisive daily close below that area would open the way toward the lower consolidation boundary near $85,569, which also aligns with the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement of the April–October advance. Separate technical work flags $87,000 as another short-term support, with a secondary zone between $84,000 and $85,000.

Read together, those numbers define a near-term risk zone: if BTC-USD cannot hold the $87,000–$85,569 corridor, the correction risks turning into a deeper trend break. The daily Relative Strength Index is sitting near 42, below the neutral 50 mark and pointing to growing bearish momentum. The MACD on the daily chart has already produced a downside crossover, reinforcing the negative bias.

On the top side, $90,000 has turned into the first resistance. Above that, $93,000 is an important recovery checkpoint highlighted by short-term technicians, followed by the broken 61.8% Fibonacci level at $94,253. The recent high near $98,000 is the final obstacle before bulls can argue that the uptrend is reasserting itself. Until BTC-USD is trading back above at least $93,000–$94,253, any intraday bounce looks like a rally inside a downtrend rather than a durable reversal.

Medium-term downside map: $74,000, $68,000 and the $52,000 tail-risk level

Beyond the immediate channel, several independent analyses converge on a three-step downside roadmap. The first medium-term target is around $74,000, which corresponds to the lower boundary of the November consolidation band and sits close to the April 2025 low at $74,420. From current prices near $88,600–$89,000, a move to $74,000 implies a drawdown of roughly 16–17%.

Beneath that, the 200-week exponential moving average is clustered around $68,000. A test of that level would represent a decline of around 23% from the $88,626 reference price and would bring BTC-USD back into a zone that has historically defined major cycle floors.

The extreme bearish scenario is driven by Fibonacci extensions and longer-term structural charts pointing to the $52,000 area. That would be the lowest print since August 2024 and would represent a fall of more than 41% from the current $88,600–$89,000 band. Separately, a high-profile macro strategist has floated the possibility of $10,000 Bitcoin under a severe “Sell America” unwind, illustrating just how asymmetric the left tail remains if macro policy missteps and liquidity shocks compound.

These are not base-case targets today, but the combination of ETF outflows, bond-market stress and geopolitical escalation means the market has to respect the probability of a full retest of the $74,000–$68,000 zone with a non-trivial tail risk toward $52,000.

How BTC-USD is trading relative to gold and the broader ‘risk asset’ complex

The relationship between BTC-USD and gold is critical to understanding current price action. While Bitcoin is fighting to defend the high-$80,000s, gold has printed new all-time highs near $4,900 and is stabilizing around $4,842. Silver has surged past $90. These levels, paired with heavy inflows into bullion-related products, confirm that allocators looking for protection against tariffs, bond volatility and political risk are choosing metals over crypto.

At the same time, Bitcoin is behaving like a U.S. equity proxy. It fell as the S&P 500 lost about 2% and the Nasdaq sold off hard, and it bounced only modestly when Trump moved to calm markets in Davos by stating that Greenland would not be taken by force and that the push to acquire the island “will not be a threat to NATO”. After those remarks, BTC-USD briefly recovered toward $89,500, up a little more than 1% from the intraday low, while gold slipped from its morning peak near $4,900. That tiny relief rally underscores how sensitive the coin is to each incremental headline.

In other words, on the current tape, Bitcoin is not trading as “digital gold”; it is trading as high-beta U.S. risk with a volatility profile that amplifies every twist in macro sentiment.

Sector signals from Ethereum, XRP and Dogecoin around BTC-USD

The broader crypto complex confirms the risk-off message. Ethereum is trading around $2,920, down about 0.7% on the session and logging its fourth consecutive red day. Price has dropped below $3,000 for the first time in three weeks, with a defined range between a lower band at $2,750 and an upper band near $3,400. From $2,920, a move to $2,750 implies another 6% downside; a full extension to the June lows around $2,100 would mean a 28% slide, and an extreme Fibonacci projection toward $1,000 would represent a brutal 66% decline from current levels.

XRP is weaker still. The token is trading around $1.89 and has recorded seven straight down sessions, with only one meaningful up day since the early-January high on the 6th. It is now pressing support around $1.80, which overlaps this year’s and last year’s lows. A clean break of $1.80 exposes $1.25, the October 10 flash-crash low, roughly 34% below current price. The extreme tail-risk projection near $0.50 would imply a 74% collapse.

Dogecoin trades near $0.1254, down for the eighth session in a row, with only one green day out of the last fifteen since January 6. The immediate target is the 2026 low at $0.12065. If that level fails, technicians are watching the $0.08 area, more than 36% below current price. Only a recovery back above about $0.18, where the 200-day EMA and a prior resistance cluster sit, would reopen a path back toward $0.26, last seen three months ago.

This cross-asset picture matters for BTC-USD because it shows two things at once. First, the whole sector is under pressure; second, Bitcoin has been relatively more resilient than the most speculative altcoins. Some strategists therefore still describe BTC as the “defensive anchor within the sector” – but the anchor itself is drifting lower.

Sentiment, ETF behavior and the ‘TACO’ narrative around BTC-USD

Sentiment indicators are firmly in risk-off territory. A widely watched Crypto Fear & Greed Index is lingering in “Fear” after the $1.7 billion in liquidations. ETF flows, as already noted, have flipped sharply negative, with nearly $500 million in outflows over two sessions and about $880 million across the last two major negative days. That shift from record inflows to sizeable redemptions in such a short window suggests that a meaningful portion of the previous buying was fast, leveraged capital, not patient, sticky accumulation.

At the same time, there is a cohort leaning into what some call the “TACO” trade – shorthand for “Trump always chickens out”. The logic is that the President routinely pushes to the brink on tariffs and foreign-policy threats, then pulls back just enough to let markets recover, as happened in prior U.S.–China episodes. From that perspective, the fact that BTC-USD has “only” dropped around 10% from $98,000 to the high-$80,000s, instead of collapsing immediately toward $74,000, is interpreted as evidence that the market is already partially pricing in eventual de-escalation.

This tension between fear-driven liquidations and TACO-driven dip-buying is exactly what is keeping Bitcoin pinned under $90,000 but above the first major structural supports.

What would a bullish reversal in BTC-USD actually require?

For the bullish camp, the checklist is clear and demanding. First, BTC-USD needs to reclaim $90,000 and hold it on a closing basis, turning the former support-turned-resistance back into a floor. Second, price has to push through the $93,000 zone highlighted by short-term technicians and then retest the 61.8% Fibonacci level at $94,253 from above, effectively negating the recent breakdown.

Third, the coin must neutralize the bearish signals on the daily chart: RSI should move back above 50 and ideally toward the 55–60 band, while the MACD would need to flatten and then cross higher. Fourth, ETF flows must stabilize, with outflows slowing and ideally flipping back to net inflows, confirming that long-only and institutional buyers are stepping back in rather than using bounces to exit.

If all of those conditions are met and BTC-USD then retakes the recent high near $98,000, the door would reopen for a run back toward the old peak at $126,199. In that scenario, the current dip would be reclassified as a deeper-than-average correction inside a secular bull market, rather than the start of a prolonged drawdown.

Until then, every uptick from $88,000–$89,000 into the $90,000–$94,000 band should be treated as a test of supply rather than proof that the worst is over.

Risk profile for BTC-USD: short-term skewed lower, long-term path still open

Putting the macro, flows and technicals together, the near-term risk-reward for BTC-USD is tilted to the downside. Price is below key moving averages and under major Fibonacci support. ETF flows are negative. Macro headlines remain hostile: tariff threats, trade war risk, bond-market instability, and political uncertainty around the Federal Reserve and broader U.S. policy all weigh on high-beta assets.

At the same time, the structural bull case is not dead. Corporates like “Strategy” have just deployed $2.1 billion to accumulate 22,305 BTC, their largest weekly addition since 2024, even as the stock has suffered a 60% drawdown. That behavior shows conviction among some balance-sheet buyers who are clearly looking beyond the current turbulence. Broader exchange-trading data showing more than $1.25 trillion in yearly volume on leading venues and growing altcoin turnover signals an ecosystem that is still expanding, even if prices correct.

The key is time horizon. Over days and weeks, the dominant forces are ETF outflows, bond yields and tariff headlines, all of which argue that a retest of $87,787, $85,569 and potentially the $74,000–$68,000 band is more likely than an immediate sprint back above $98,000. Over multi-year windows, if the macro backdrop ultimately shifts back to lower real yields and continued adoption, the current zone could end up as another high-beta shakeout within a larger secular uptrend.

Verdict on Bitcoin (BTC-USD): short-term bearish bias, rated HOLD with downside levels to watch

Given the current setup, BTC-USD does not justify an aggressive Buy at ~$88,000–$89,000, but it is also not yet in a zone where a wholesale Sell makes sense for long-term holders. The market is sitting between broken resistance at $90,000 and the first major structural supports in the mid-$80,000s and low-$70,000s, with ETF flows negative and macro volatility elevated.

The balanced stance is straightforward:
For traders, the bias is bearish while BTC-USD trades below $90,000–$93,000, with rallies toward that band offering better entries for short-duration bearish positioning than dips do for longs, as long as $94,253 and $98,000 remain unchallenged.
For investors with a multi-year horizon, the more rational course is to treat the coin as a HOLD at current levels, reserving fresh capital for deeper dislocations closer to $74,000, $68,000 or, in a genuine flush, the low-$50,000s, rather than chasing additional exposure just below $90,000 in the middle of a macro storm.

Short term: BTC-USD – bearish skew.
Strategic stance: BTC-USD – HOLD, with better accumulation zones lower if the Greenland, bond-market and ETF shocks drive the next leg down.

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