BTC Lulls Below $95k as Altcoins Show Signs of Recovery

TL;DR

• Bitcoin is down 1% in the last 24 hours and trades below $95k as it continues to consolidate in recent days.

• MicroStrategy acquires 5,262 bitcoins as its stock officially joins the NASDAQ 100 index.

BTC Lulls Below $95k

The cryptocurrency market has been underperforming recently, with Bitcoin struggling to go back above $100k. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 1% in the last 24 hours and trades at $94,402 per coin.

There is no catalyst behind the recent bearish performance, as the market has been bearish since the Fed announced its interest rates forecast for 2025. The bearish performance persisted despite MicroStrategy acquiring another 5,262 bitcoins on Monday.

MicroStrategy has acquired 5,262 BTC for ~$561 million at ~$106,662 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 47.4% QTD and 73.7% YTD. As of 12/22/2024, we hodl 444,262 $BTC acquired for ~$27.7 billion at ~$62,257 per bitcoin. $MSTR https://t.co/asDGerBV7q

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) December 23, 2024

The Michael Saylor-led company announced on Monday that it bought 5,262 BTC for a total of $561 million in the week ended Dec. 22 to take its total holdings to 444,262 BTC.

Michael Saylor announced this acquisition, stating that the purchase was at an average price of $106,622 per bitcoin. At current market prices, this brings the value of MicroStrategy's holdings to $42.2 billion, raising the average cost to $62,257 per bitcoin.

Altcoins in Green

While Bitcoin is struggling, altcoins are bouncing back. Ether, the leading altcoin by market cap, is up 3% in the last 24 hours and is approaching the $3,500 mark. Binance’s BNB token is the best performer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, up nearly 5%. As the 5th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, BNB currently trades at $693 per coin.

Chainlink (6%), Sui (8%), and Hedera (11%) lead the charge, while other major altcoins also rally higher in the last 24 hours. Thanks to the improved performance, the total cryptocurrency market cap increased by 1% to hit $3.32 trillion.