Bitcoin slipped by several thousand dollars on Friday afternoon before stabilizing around $90,000. On December 12, 2025, President Donald Trump said next year’s interest rates could be at 1% or lower and later warned of land strikes against drug operations in Latin America. Despite the headlines, BTC remains just over $90,000.

On 13 December 2025, Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager overseeing roughly $12 trillion, reiterated caution on Bitcoin even as it allows trading in select spot Bitcoin ETFs. John Ameriks, global head of quantitative equity, said BTC lacks income and compounding features, and recent volatility around the low-$90,000 range reinforces the firm’s skepticism.

In early 2025, blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger reported that sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex rebuilt a payout system using new Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets holding over $34 million in crypto. At least $25 million has already been distributed to former users, while most of the Ethereum reserve remains untouched, with the wallets allegedly interacting with top 10 centralized exchanges and raising fresh regulatory concerns.

Brazil’s largest private lender Itaú reaffirmed its Bitcoin stance in a new outlook, advising a 1–3% portfolio allocation as a long-term hedge into 2026. The bank maintained this view despite recent volatility, with BTC around $90,100 and down 2.3% on a USDT basis, citing diversification benefits and protection during currency stress.

Bitcoin miner earnings fell from 562 BTC in mid-October to 502 BTC now, an 11% decline, according to Glassnode. With difficulty reaching a record 159 trillion in early November and miners’ net position changes turning negative (-3,555 BTC in late November and -487 BTC recently), profitability and wallet balances face mounting pressure amid volatile ETF flows.

As Bitcoin traded between $90,000 and $91,000, Binance on‑chain metrics showed a notable divergence on December 3rd: the 30‑day EMA of withdrawals reached 3,100 per day, while deposits fell to about 320, both multi‑year extremes. The pattern points to reduced available exchange supply and subdued sell‑side activity, with resistance highlighted near $109,000 and $117,000–$122,000.

Bitcoin has repeatedly moved lower following each Federal Open Market Committee meeting in 2025, reflecting its growing sensitivity to US Federal Reserve policy and interest-rate expectations. Analyst CryptoMichNL expects the real directional move to appear within one to two weeks after the latest decision, with Bitcoin needing to clear $92,000 to challenge the $100,000 area while keeping its broader bullish structure intact. Trader Daan Crypto Trades highlights that the recent pullback bounced at the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement of the cycle, suggesting the uptrend on higher timeframes remains valid.

At Bloomberg's ETFs in Depth conference in New York City, Vanguard's quantitative equity chief John Ameriks compared Bitcoin to a digital plush collectible, calling it a purely speculative asset. His remarks came after Vanguard's December policy shift that let its more than 50 million clients trade crypto exchange-traded funds, even as Bitcoin trades above $90,000 with 16 years of network uptime. Ameriks noted Bitcoin could gain non-speculative utility in environments of high fiat inflation or political instability, but said Vanguard will not give clients advice on specific crypto tokens.