BTC Slips Under $89K as Market Rally Falters Even After Trade Tensions Ease

Bitcoin (BTC) at $89,205.79 and other cryptocurrencies failed to sustain gains from Wednesday afternoon’s Greenland-related relief rally.

After briefly climbing above $90,000 over the past 18 hours, BTC fell back to around $88,500, down 1.5% over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH) dropped below $3,000, falling 2.5% to $2,955.52.

Crypto-focused stocks were mostly lower, even as broader equities moved higher, with the Nasdaq up 0.7%. Shares of Bullish (BLSH), Hut 8 (HUT), Galaxy Digital (GLXY), and XXI (XXI) fell between 2% and 4%.

“The consensus view is that crypto markets remain bearish until roughly September,” said Kaledora Fontana, CEO of Ostium, a platform for trading digitized commodities perpetual swaps. “Much of this outlook is driven by expectations that rate cuts won’t occur until after a Fed Chair transition, and even then, it takes time for policy changes to filter through to risk-on assets. Meaningful upside is likely only after these effects fully work through the system.”

Despite bitcoin struggling to hold $90,000 and posting only marginal gains for the year, there are small signs of risk appetite. This is reflected in the MicroStrategy (MSTR) to BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ratio.

On a day when bitcoin traded lower, the MSTR-to-IBIT ratio remained slightly positive and is up roughly 5% year-to-date, indicating continued interest in what MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor calls “amplified bitcoin.” The ratio also appears to have broken a long-term downward trend that had been in place since July.