In what has become a very familiar stock at the start of the US trading day, the crypto sector quickly abandoned even the slightest hint of an overnight rally.
Bitcoin, which at one point surpassed $89,000 while the United States slept on Friday, It quickly fell below $87,000 when U.S. stocks opened trading after the Christmas holidays.
Once again very familiar to cryptocurrency bulls, the poor price action came as metals continued to soar, with gold, silver, copper, and platinum hitting new all-time highs on Friday.
Metals, already attracting capital that could otherwise go into bitcoin as part of the global debasement trade, are also benefiting today from rising geopolitical tension after the United States attacked Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day and increased pressure against Venezuela by blocking sanctioned oil tankers.
Palladium and platinum led the metal gains, both up more than 10%, while silver and copper gained 5%. Gold advances 1.5% to $4,573 per ounce.
The Nasdaq, S&P 500 and DJIA were trading nearly flat in morning action.
Bitcoin is down 1.6% in the last 24 hours; ether was down similarly. fell more than 4% and It sank 3%, leading the losses of the rest of the sector.
Cryptocurrency stocks were also in the red, with Coinbase (COIN), named one of the three most promising fintech ideas in 2026 by Clear Street’s Owen Lau, outperforming with just a 2% drop. Gemini (GEMI) was down 6%, Bullish (BLSH) was down 3.8%, and Galaxy Digital (GLXY) was down 3.5%.
Bitcoin miners were especially hard hit early in the post-Christmas trading session, even those that have shifted their business models from BTC mining to AI infrastructure. IREN (IREN), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Terawulf (WULF) and Marathon Digital (MARA) were among those that fell 5% or more. Hut 8 (HUT), which was a strong performer over the past week in its own AI plans, topped the list of losses on Friday, down 7.5%.
