Trading

Chainlink held the $12 area after a large token unlock from a non-circulating supply wallet. Despite heavy exchange inflows, buyers stepped in and halted a breakdown, with price hovering near $12.5 on the daily chart. Short-term momentum improved as dip-buying lifted demand at key support.

XRP is trading near $1.94 after a sharp decline to its lowest level since April, with buyers defending the $1.85 area and eyeing resistance around $2.00 and above. The token, valued at roughly $118 bn with daily volume near $2.9 bn, remains inside a descending channel that defines key levels at $2.17 on the upside and $1.77 on the downside. A clear move above $2.00 could signal a shift toward higher targets, while failure there leaves the door open for another pullback to lower supports.

In 2025's volatile crypto market, ChatGPT was asked to design a $1,000 portfolio for 2026 that balances liquidity, infrastructure, and growth potential. The model allocated $250 to Bitcoin and $200 to Ethereum, with the remaining funds spread across Ondo Finance, Chainlink, Celestia, Render, Kaspa, and Arbitrum. The construction favors projects tied to tokenization, scalability, and compute-heavy use cases rather than purely narrative-driven assets.

On December 20, 2025, Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina said cryptocurrency mining is among the factors supporting the ruble’s strength. She noted the sector’s gray-market share makes its impact hard to measure. The ruble was a little over 80 per U.S. dollar, after rising above 110 in January and touching around 76 earlier in December.

Bitcoin is trading sideways as $415 million in options are scheduled to expire over the next seven days, with half of that open interest due on 26 December. If buyers can continue to defend the $85k–$88k support band through the expiry window, analysts expect conditions for a FOMO-driven breakout and a bullish base heading into 2026.

On December 20, 2025, on-chain analyst Ali Martinez cautioned that XRP's support weakens below $1.77, raising the odds of a corrective move toward $0.79. His view, based on Glassnode's URPD distribution, highlights thin realized volume under $1.77, with intermediate levels at $1.41, $1.27, and $1.01 seen as fragile. At press time, XRP traded at $1.95, up 4.5% day-on-day but down over 4% week-on-week.

XRP climbed from $1.77 to an intraday high of $1.957, approaching the $2 level while forming a double bottom near the recent low. Trading volume dropped 42% to $2.8 billion, raising doubts about the strength of the move even as optimism around XRP ETFs and Ripple's new partnerships supports sentiment.

Shiba Inu's netflow across exchanges hit -125,937,300,000 SHIB on Dec. 11, signaling heavier withdrawals than deposits. Over the last day, the exchange flow metric fell by more than 11%, while SHIB traded at $0.000007485, up 1.98% from a recent low of $0.000007011.

On December 20, 2025, BitMex co-founder Arthur Hayes argued that altcoin season is continuous and that many traders overlook the true winners. He cited Hyperliquid's move from $2–$3 to $60 and Solana's rebound from about $7 in 2022 to nearly $300 early this year. The Altcoin Season Index stood at 35, indicating conditions not yet consistent with an altcoin season.

Bitcoin has slipped about 3% for the week to $88,000 after briefly rebounding from $84,500, with on-chain data highlighting that zone as the strongest current support. Analyst Ali Martinez notes that a break below roughly $83,300 could open the way to deeper supports at $79,520, $70,685, and $63,111. The price also faces heavy sell walls just above the market, including resistance around $90,000, $92,000 and a major barrier near $94,000.