Traders are watching a dense pocket of bids around $87,500 and persistent sell pressure just below $90,000, a setup that has locked bitcoin into a month-end standoff.
Bitcoin’s price action appeared unusually subdued earlier last month, even as equities and precious metals rallied to record highs. The cryptocurrency repeatedly failed to clear the $90,000 level — a stall that, in hindsight, signaled vulnerability well before the subsequent slide toward $75,000.
At the time, market participants pointed to a range of explanations, including a rotation into safer assets, softening crypto demand, uneven spot ETF flows and routine month-end positioning. But some analysts say the more important clues were already visible in exchange order books.
According to Keith Alan, co-founder of trading analytics firm Material Indicators, sell-side liquidity consistently sat below $90,000, absorbing buying pressure and preventing sustained upside even when broader conditions looked supportive.
Alan described the behavior as “liquidity herding,” a tactic in which large traders influence market behavior by guiding price toward levels that suit their positioning. By placing sizeable, visible sell orders, buying appears riskier, prompting hesitation among smaller traders. Prices then drift sideways or lower, allowing larger players to accumulate more discreetly.
Rather than relying on news or fundamentals, the strategy uses market structure itself. It often emerges around options expiry, when keeping prices within a defined range can limit losses or improve payouts for dominant participants.
At the same time, order-book data showed a thick band of bids between roughly $85,000 and $87,500. That area repeatedly absorbed selling pressure and acted as a short-term floor during bitcoin’s prolonged consolidation.
“If that support held, it could have formed a base for another push higher,” Alan said at the time. “But once it breaks, moves can accelerate quickly.”
That warning proved prescient. When bitcoin slipped below the lower edge of the bid cluster, selling intensified as thin liquidity magnified each move. The breakdown marked a clear failure of the range that had contained prices for weeks.
Over the weekend, bitcoin fell into the $74,000–$76,000 range, highlighting the fragile balance between dip buyers and forced sellers in a market still short on depth.
Alan had also cautioned that a monthly close below roughly $87,500 — the opening level for 2026 — would signal a decisive technical breakdown. He referred to such a scenario as “Bearadise,” a phase in which eroding confidence allows downside momentum to feed on itself.
The ability of large traders to influence short-term price action through visible liquidity placement is a long-standing feature of crypto markets. Whales and high-frequency firms have long used order-book depth to shape expectations, often leaving smaller participants caught on the wrong side of the move.
In hindsight, the same order-book dynamics that kept bitcoin capped below $90,000 also left the market particularly exposed once that support finally gave way.
