A break in early 2026 in what had been a weeks-long pattern of falling cryptocurrency prices during US trading sessions proved short-lived. Making a run for $95,000 as US stocks opened the day, bitcoin has retreated just above the $92,000 area just after midday on the East Coast, now down 1.3% over the past 24 hours.
XRP, which led Monday’s cryptocurrency rally, fell more than 2% in the last two hours. solarium – which received an initial boost when Morgan Stanley decided to offer a spot SOL ETF – similarly retreated.
Read More: Bitcoin Targets $94,000 as Crypto Prices Make First Gains in US for Second Consecutive Session
The declines came as U.S. stocks posted modest gains, with the Nasdaq up 0.4% and the S&P 500 up 0.3%. The fastest action was occurring in metals, with gold rising 1% and regaining $4,500 per ounce, and silver rising 5% and back above $80 per ounce. Copper advanced 1.1% and exceeded $6 per ounce for the first time in history.
ETF inflows off to a strong start in 2026
Bitcoin ETFs on Monday recorded their largest single-day inflow in nearly three months (around $697 million), pointing to new institutional allocations and the recovery of year-end fiscal losses. Ether saw an even more bullish flow bias, with large block trades pointing to the upside in the medium to long term via bid spreads, suggesting directional conviction towards the second half of 2026, according to cryptocurrency trading firm Wintermute.
Options markets continue to reflect cautious optimism, according to Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC at Wintermute. Traders are positioning themselves to take profits on both BTC and ETH, he said, but with an eye on structural dynamics. BTC’s bias remains negative, a pattern driven by systematic overwriting and hedging by entities that treat bitcoin as a treasury asset, Ostrovskis added.
That has made risk reversals (buying calls while selling puts) a profitable way to express bullish opinions, Ostroviskis said.
Looking ahead, bitcoin’s price action suggests it is increasingly seen as a geopolitical hedge, less tied to inflation or central banks, but more tied to statecraft and long-term strategic positioning, said Matt Mena, cryptocurrency research strategist at 21shares.
Mena noted Bitcoin’s 6% loss in 2025 and that it has already recovered a significant portion of that in the first week of 2026. Bitcoin, he recalled, has never recorded consecutive years of losses.
In fact, after years in which cryptocurrencies were among the worst-performing asset classes, they have often rebounded sharply, as they did after market crashes in 2014, 2018, and 2022. If that pattern holds, 2026 could shape up as a strong year for digital assets.
