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The War In The Order Books Continues For BTC and ETH

BTC had somewhat of a promising start to Wednesday, breaking above its hourly resistance of $88k this morning. After cracking $90k, BTC was sent back down in minutes. The repeated sell wall of rejection is becoming tiresome for bitcoin bulls,…

By Ben Briody
Published December 17, 2025, 3:00pm ET · 2 min read

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A golden Ethereum coin with the Ethereum logo and 'ethereum' text on its surface is placed next to a dark screen showing a financial candlestick chart. The chart features numerous red and some green vertical bars and lines, indicating market price movements.
An Ethereum coin is shown alongside a candlestick chart, visually representing the recent volatility and decline in the cryptocurrency market, mirroring the ETHU ETF's performance. © Alexandru Nika / Shutterstock.com

BTC had somewhat of a promising start to Wednesday, breaking above its hourly resistance of $88k this morning. After cracking $90k, BTC was sent back down in minutes. The repeated sell wall of rejection is becoming tiresome for bitcoin bulls, as nothing seems to be able to get over this hump, and send things back towards the once familiar $100k and above levels. Since the ETF approval, the mass amount of flow has greatly reduced the impact of retail traders, and even large buy orders at the billion level are unable to break through. The mystery of who blew up on 10/10 has still not been solved, and many wonder if these repeated mass sales are still being done by insolvent organizations forced to unwind their BTC. Newer addresses have been tailing off since the end of November, possibly indicating that newer market entrants are taking their toys and going home. 

 

Active addresses on Ethereum have been in a steady downslope as the year winds down, which is not to be unexpected. Thankfully, new addresses have been steadily increasing throughout 2025, showing the world that interest continues to grow in participating on-chain in the world’s second leading crypto. ETH has been trading down today as well, being rejected at $3k and now trading around $2.8k at this time of writing. Perpetual futures funding rates have fallen to negative values on the majority of exchanges, as short traders have taken over the order book. 

 

Activity will continue to dwindle into the end of the year, but tomorrow’s multiple central bank meetings could put some interesting energy into the markets.

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Ben Briody

I'm a finance and analytics professional with a strong foundation in capital markets and a proven track record of solving complex problems through data, engineering, and design. Wall Street-trained and bred and thoroughly battle tested in crypto, I bring a multidisciplinary approach that blends financial acumen, technical architecture, and strategic execution.

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