Bitcoin rose to $90,353 on Monday, driven by futures market speculation rather than organic spot buying, according to on-chain data. That rally occurred as open interest and the cumulative volume delta for perpetual futures have risen, while the spot CVD has declined, signaling a derivatives-led move. The Coinbase premium has flipped negative after a brief positive period, indicating a lack of premium buying demand from U.S. investors. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have posted net outflows in recent weeks, with no signs of sustained institutional inflows returning.
This divergence between futures and spot activity is a classic hallmark of a derivatives-driven rally. Aggregate open interest has been trending down since late November, and Bitcoin has repeatedly failed to hold above $90,000, underscoring persistent selling pressure. The technical backdrop remains fragile despite the milestone. Digital Asset Trusts (DATs) saw approximately $2.23 billion in net inflows for the week of December 15–21, the largest weekly DAT inflow since late September, driven by corporate treasury purchases of Bitcoin, XRP, and Ethereum.
Analysts cautioned that the holiday period could see liquidity dry up and that the rally may stall. Georgii Verbitskii, founder of DeFi platform TYMIO, described Bitcoin as “stuck in a sideways range between roughly $85,000 and $95,000” with no clear directional bias. Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget, projects a holiday range of about $86,000 to $93,000 for BTC and $2,800 to $3,200 for ETH, citing renewed institutional inflows and potential regulatory clarity as supports. Myriad, a prediction market, assigns only a 3% chance of a Santa rally over the holidays.
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