The pressure came from a broader market decline. Global stocks slipped in quiet holiday trading with U.S., Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets closed, and Asian shares fell 0.6% after five days of record gains. Brent crude was trading around $79 a barrel, down about 9% for the week, as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz returned to normal under the deal signed between the United States and Iran and eased what had been a historic supply shock.
Attention now turns to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, with Vice President JD Vance saying a 60-day deadline to iron out the details of the deal has begun.
The biggest question hanging over the market is where this cycle is going and whether altcoins that typically rally late in a bull run will get their turn. Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, told CoinDesk that he believes Bitcoin is performing differently this cycle because spot ETFs were approved just before the 2024 halving, the event about four years away that reduces the rate of issuance of new Bitcoins, attracting institutional demand that wasn’t there before and breaking the old model.
The speculative energy that once flowed into altcoins, he said, turned into “useless memecoins” right after the ETFs launched.
