Bitcoin is clinging to a level that may decide whether it ends the year in a crypto winter or back above six figures. The largest cryptocurrency changed hands near $75,700 on Saturday evening, roughly 2.2% below its October close and about 40% under the record $126,080 reached in October 2025, according to CoinGecko pricing.
The token has spent the past week swinging between hope and retreat. It opened November at $78,233, slipped as investors pulled more than half a billion dollars from US spot exchange-traded funds, then jumped to $81,105 on Wednesday morning after the midterm elections. The rally lasted a single day. By Thursday it had slid to about $75,500, and Friday's stronger-than-expected jobs report pushed it to a November low of $74,762 before it steadied.
The coming weeks are unusually crowded with events that could force a resolution, from Tuesday's October consumer price index to the Federal Reserve's December 9 rate decision. Every scenario for the year-end has a date on which it is either confirmed or ruled out.
Three paths into the new year
The most immediate line in the sand is $73,191, the 200-day moving average. Bitcoin is only 3.4% above it. A daily close below that level would put recent buyers underwater and open the door to $70,000, a further 7.5% decline. Beneath that sits the 200-week moving average at $67,467, a level past bear markets have often treated as a floor.
On the other side, reclaiming $77,700 -- the average cost basis of active investors tracked by Glassnode -- and then about $81,300, the estimated average entry price of US spot ETF buyers, would put ETF holders back in profit and remove the incentive to sell at break-even. That path leads to $80,000 to $90,000, gains of 5.7% to 18.9% from current levels.
The third scenario, $100,000 by December 31, requires a 32.1% advance in 53 days and would still leave bitcoin about 21% below its all-time high. It would demand several simultaneous breaks: a December rate hike priced well below the current 76.8% probability, billions of dollars in ETF inflows rather than a few good days, and no forced selling from corporate treasuries.
Note: Levels based on Bitstamp daily closes, Glassnode cost-basis data and Coinbase Institutional estimates.
Options positioning tilts toward the middle case. For the November 27 expiry, with 71,921 BTC of open interest worth about $5.4 billion, max pain sits at $80,000, the price at which option buyers collect the least and sellers earn the most. The largest call strike is $90,000. For the year-end expiry, max pain is $75,000 -- almost exactly where bitcoin trades now.
Three forces behind the slide
The selling pressure has come from three directions at once, and none has fully run its course.
First, money is leaving the spot bitcoin ETFs. A net $1.28 billion flowed out in the week to November 6, the heaviest weekly total since late June. BlackRock's IBIT, the largest fund, lost $403 million on Friday alone. For 2026, US spot ETFs are now net negative by about $914 million, according to SoSoValue data. The funds were the market's biggest buyer in 2024 and 2025; while they sell, the demand that sustains a rally is absent.
Second, the market is bracing for tighter policy. The Fed held its target range at 3.75% to 4.00% on October 28, and two of twelve voters already favored a hike. October payrolls rose 165,000 with unemployment at 4.1%, and the prior two months were revised up by a combined 84,000, a labor market too strong to justify cuts. CME FedWatch put the odds of a December 9 hike at 76.8%, up from 66.9% a week earlier. Higher rates make Treasury bills more attractive and drain money from risk assets.
Third, the October 29 Binance hack still hangs over the market. Attackers stole crypto worth about $6.3 billion from the largest exchange, part of which has been frozen, and customers withdrew billions afterward. The Fear and Greed Index fell from 50 on November 5 to 25 on Saturday, a reading of extreme fear.
Corporate treasury moves have added to the unease. Wallets tied to Trump Media sent 4,259 bitcoin to Crypto.com on Thursday, weeks before holders of its convertible notes can demand up to $1 billion in cash on November 30. No sale has been confirmed, but the company has warned it may have to sell digital assets if it cannot raise enough financing.
The calendar that decides it
October CPI on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET is the first test. A hot reading would cement a December hike. On November 11, MSCI publishes its November index review, including the list of companies caught by its new rule for firms without a sufficient operating business; Strategy is on it, and index funds would have to sell shares, leaving the company less room for new bitcoin purchases. Fed minutes arrive November 18, followed by October PCE and third-quarter GDP on November 25, the November 27 options expiry, and the Trump Media note deadline on November 30. The November jobs report on December 4 is the last major data point before the Fed meets.
History offers little comfort to either camp. Across 2,449 rolling 53-day windows since 2020, bitcoin stayed within a range of -7.5% to +5.7% only about a quarter of the time. It rose more than 5.7% in 46% of windows and fell more than 7.5% in 30%. Bear phases, including the crypto winters of 2018 and 2022, look much like the average, suggesting distance from a record high says little about the next few weeks.
For investors, the practical question is less about picking a bottom than about process. A fixed monthly purchase schedule has historically softened the impact of bad timing; the same logic argues for splitting larger allocations into tranches around the dates above rather than committing everything to a single price.
