Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC-USD Stalls Around $89K, Is $100K Target Possible?

Bitcoin BTC-USD At $89K: Compression Before A Potential Break

*Short-Term Structure For BTC-USD

Bitcoin trades around $89,000–$89,500 with weekly losses near 6%, but the real story is structure. The last three daily candles are doji-type, with small bodies and long wicks, printed right on the lower edge of a rising wedge. That is classic “defensive” price action: sellers press intraday lows, buyers step in late and only prevent a clean breakdown, not drive a trend higher.
The wedge support sits just above $88,500. A decisive daily close below that level unlocks a measured move toward roughly $77,300, about 13% below current price. Inside this wedge, BTC-USD is also tracking an ascending corrective channel after the recent sell-off, with bears repeatedly capping the upside below roughly $94,000 and bulls building a thin floor around $87,000.
Horizontal levels are well-defined. On the upside, short-term traders are watching about $90,426 first, then $98,139, $100,619 and $110,752 as successive resistance layers if momentum recovers. On the downside, the sequence is $88,500 (wedge floor), then around $84,300, and finally the wedge target near $77,300 if selling accelerates.
The 20-day EMA was lost on January 20. The previous clear break below that line on December 12 was followed by an ~8% correction. This time, BTC is already roughly 5% under the January breakdown and trading in a tight band. Reclaiming the 20-day EMA requires a daily close above roughly $91,000, about 1.8% above spot. Without that reclaim, the market stays technically vulnerable to another leg lower.

On-Chain Positioning: Long-Term Holders Versus Miners And Whales

On-chain flows show a clear tug-of-war. Long-term holders (coins held at least 155 days) are still net accumulators, which explains why BTC-USD has not broken down despite the weak structure. Holder Net Position Change stayed positive over the last two weeks: around January 19, long-term wallets added roughly 22,618 BTC in a single day. By January 23, that daily net buying fell to about 17,109 BTC, a drop of roughly 24% in four days. Support is still present, but the cushion is shrinking.
Miners are moving in the opposite direction and much more aggressively. Miner Net Position Change showed net selling of about 335 BTC on January 9; by January 23, that 30-day net reduction had blown out to roughly 2,826 BTC, more than an eightfold increase in selling pressure over two weeks.
The reason is straightforward: revenue compression. Monthly network fees dropped from around 194 BTC in May 2025 to about 59 BTC by January 2026, roughly a 70% collapse in fee income. With fees down and hash costs persistent, miners are forced to bridge the gap by unloading more spot into the market.
Whale behavior is more subtle. The number of large BTC addresses climbed steadily from January 9 through January 22, then flattened and started to tick lower. That pattern points to early distribution rather than panic liquidation. Combined with rising miner selling and fading long-term inflows, it adds a steady supply overhang into every bounce.

Profit-Taking Regime: Realized PnL, Channel Behavior And Volatility

Realized profit and loss data confirm that BTC-USD remains in a profit-driven environment rather than a capitulation phase. One-year net realized PnL is strongly positive again, meaning coins are predominantly being sold at a gain rather than at a loss. That is typical of a bullish or late-bull regime: investors lock in profits into strength, adding supply whenever price rallies.
This backdrop matches the tape. After setting this year’s high near $97,900 on January 14 and previously trading above $100,000 in November before the October crash reset sentiment, BTC slid from above $95,000 to the high-$80,000 area and is now chopping around $89,000–$89,500. Rising profit-taking tends to produce failed breakouts, sharp pullbacks and choppy ranges rather than clean trends.
Another dataset frames BTC-USD inside an ascending channel following the recent sell-off, with price currently in the lower half of that structure. Momentum tools there show MACD flattening and Chaikin Money Flow hovering around neutral but slightly positive, consistent with a market that is consolidating while volatility quietly builds. If buyers manage to defend the $90,000 zone and push back toward the midline of the channel, moves toward $98,000–$100,600 become feasible. If channel support gives way, the technical roadmap quickly reverts to the $84,300 and $77,300 areas.

Wrapped Bitcoin WBTCUSD: Technical Cross-Check And DeFi Lens

Wrapped Bitcoin offers a liquid proxy for BTC-USD on smart-contract rails. WBTCUSD trades around $89,177.17, up about 0.24% on the day, with a market capitalization near $11.18 billion. Technically, it paints the same picture as spot BTC with slightly different instrumentation.
The RSI sits near 59.13, a neutral-positive reading that confirms neither exhaustion nor stress. MACD is negative at roughly -946.14 while the signal line sits lower, around -1955.93, leaving a positive histogram close to 1009. That combination signals a bearish trend in place but with early hints of potential momentum repair.
Trend strength is not weak: ADX around 33.32 points to a strong directional backdrop, which in this case still leans to the downside. Bollinger Bands frame the tactical range with support near $83,836.12 and resistance around $93,404.00, while the middle band at approximately $88,620.06 sits almost exactly under current price, underscoring the current equilibrium zone. Stochastic %K near 86.05 marks short-term overbought conditions inside that range, which often precede local pullbacks.
Volume dynamics show reduced conviction. Daily trading volume of around 169.67 million equals roughly 72.84% of the 30-day average of 319.16 million. Yet the Money Flow Index at 71.16 signals firm buying pressure, suggesting selective accumulation rather than broad chasing. On-Balance Volume near -9.11 billion confirms that recent sessions, net-net, have been driven by sellers.
Trend filters are clear. The 50-day moving average around $90,036.22 sits slightly above spot, while the 200-day moving average near $105,361.82 is much higher, confirming a short-term soft patch inside a broader downtrend from the highs. Despite that, performance numbers are still explosive on longer horizons: roughly +0.97% year-to-date, a 12-month drawdown of about 13.73%, but gains of around 290.94% over three years and about 2,455.66% over ten years.
Model-based projections for WBTCUSD reflect that duality. A one-month target near $97,623.49 implies roughly 9.5% upside from current levels if support holds and mean reversion plays out. A quarterly projection around $125,404.28 implies upside of roughly 40.6% on a successful breakout sequence, while a one-year target near $95,021.54 points to a more range-bound, consolidating market. Further-out levels around $143,707.39 for 2031 and $168,062.20 for 2033 embed the long-term adoption thesis rather than any near-term trade.

*Macro And Policy Shocks: Tariffs, Trump Risk And The $100K Timing Debate For BTC-USD

Macro and policy shocks remain key drivers for BTC-USD over multi-day windows. Recent tariff headlines are a clear example. Last week, after new US tariff announcements targeting several EU states, BTC slid from above $95,000 to roughly $87,000 between Monday and Wednesday, a quick drawdown driven by a broad de-risking move.
The latest trigger is another tariff threat. The US president warned of 100% tariffs on all Canadian goods entering the United States if Canada formalizes a strategic deal with China that would allow roughly 50,000 Chinese EVs to enter North America via Canada under preferential tariff treatment. Beyond the political rhetoric, markets focus on the pattern: trade tensions with key allies have consistently pushed traders out of risk assets for short stretches, and BTC-USD is still treated as part of that risk complex.
Immediately after this latest threat, BTC dipped by about $500 intraday from the $89,000 area, a modest move compared with last week’s EU tariff reaction. The larger risk sits in the next 48 hours as traditional markets reopen; if global indices react negatively to the tariff narrative, BTC-USD can see another volatility spike within the existing wedge and channel structures.
Sentiment markets align with the cautious tone. On major prediction platforms, the odds of BTC reclaiming $100,000 in the very near term have collapsed. One platform prices roughly 6% probability that Bitcoin will trade above $100,000 before the end of January, while another sits close to 7% for the same window. Yet for the first half of 2026, traders still price roughly 65% odds that BTC eventually breaks back above $100,000 before June, implying expectations for prolonged consolidation or even a further dip before any sustained move higher.
The downside skew is visible in the same markets. One set of contracts puts about 65% odds that BTC trades down to $80,000 before it trades back to $100,000. Probabilities for deeper lows stack as follows: around 54% for a $70,000 bottom, roughly 50% for $65,000, and about 42% for a retest near $60,000.
Treasury-style accumulation remains firm even against that backdrop. A large listed treasury player, with an average BTC cost basis around $75,979 per coin, is assigned roughly 75% probability that the market trades below that level at some point this year. Even so, markets give less than 26% odds that this holder capitulates and sells during 2026, and about 84% probability that it finishes the year with more than 800,000 BTC after recently lifting its stack to roughly 709,715 BTC with a 22,305-coin purchase worth about $2.13 billion. Short-term sentiment is cautious, but institutional conviction in the asset remains strong.

Cycle Context: All-Time High Frequency And A Maturing BTC-USD Market

Cycle data adds another layer of perspective. Since 2016, Bitcoin has appreciated by more than 20,000% and recorded around 163 separate all-time highs, more than any other major coin. The broader top-five-coin basket shows how clustering works: 2017 produced just under 120 ATHs, while 2021 delivered around 147, and together those two years account for more than half of the past decade’s new highs.
The flip side is the drought. In 2022 and 2023, the same top-five basket logged zero ATHs, aligning perfectly with the post-bubble “crypto winter” after large failures in the sector. Mid-cycle years tell a different story: 2016, 2020 and 2024 each saw ATH counts in the 20s, while 2018 and 2019 sat in the teens, profiles that match rebuilding and accumulation phases rather than blow-off tops.
For 2025, the data is nuanced. The top five non-stablecoins delivered 36 ATHs, a rising but far from euphoric tally compared with 119 in 2017 and 143 in 2021. That suggests a strong uptrend without the kind of explosive, broad-based mania seen at previous cycle peaks. BTC-USD is still the dominant ATH generator, followed by ETH, SOL and BNB, each with roughly 70–84 ATHs over the decade, while XRP trails with about 15.
Several structural explanations fit this profile. Crypto is transitioning from fringe asset to established macro factor, helped by spot Bitcoin ETFs and clearer regulation. As market capitalization grows, each incremental dollar produces smaller percentage moves; a multi-trillion-dollar asset cannot repeatedly triple in the way smaller caps did in earlier cycles. Macro conditions also matter: higher rates, sticky inflation and geopolitical tension keep part of the capital base tied to more traditional hedges like gold.
The final possibility is timing. The four-year halving rhythm is a pattern, not a law. The moderate ATH count in 2025 may mean the cycle peak simply shifted forward, leaving room for another push in 2026 once macro conditions or liquidity improve. That would match the current data mix: strong long-term performance, profit-taking into strength, and a structural uptrend that is clearly not in the manic phase of prior tops.

*Scenario Map And Tactical Levels For BTC-USD And WBTCUSD

From the combined technical, on-chain, sentiment and macro data, three scenarios dominate.
In the constructive scenario, BTC-USD defends the $88,500–$90,000 band, reclaims the 20-day EMA with a daily close above roughly $91,000, and works back through $94,000 toward the $98,000–$100,600 area. That path would likely coincide with profit-taking remaining elevated but controlled, miner selling stabilizing as fee revenue improves, and macro headlines calming after the recent tariff shocks. Under that path, the WBTCUSD one-month projection around $97,623.49 and the quarterly target near $125,404.28 stay on the table.
In the range-bound scenario, BTC oscillates between roughly $84,300 and the low $90,000s, respecting the wedge but not breaking it decisively. Profit-taking and miner selling would offset long-term holder and institutional demand, creating a grind that matches the one-year WBTCUSD forecast near $95,021.54 and the prediction-market view of delayed six-figure prices.
In the downside scenario, wedge support around $88,500 fails on a clear daily close, with follow-through toward $84,300 and potentially the wedge projection around $77,300. That route would likely be accompanied by a further drop in long-term holder net inflows, sustained or rising miner distribution, and a macro shock that drives risk assets lower—such as a more aggressive tariff regime or another global risk event. Prediction markets already price non-trivial odds for deeper tests toward $80,000, $70,000 and even the $60,000–$65,000 range, so this path is not hypothetical but actively traded in sentiment markets.

Verdict On BTC-USD: Tactical Caution, Structural Strength – Overall Hold Bias

Putting all the data together, BTC-USD trades in a fragile technical position but inside a still-intact long-term bull structure. Rising wedges near all-time highs, loss of the 20-day EMA, heavy miner selling and a profit-taking dominated regime argue against aggressive fresh long exposure at current levels. Prediction markets echo that caution, assigning low odds to an immediate move back above $100,000 and higher odds to intermediate drawdowns toward $80,000–$70,000.
At the same time, positive one-year realized PnL, ongoing net buying from long-term holders, strong treasury accumulation and the decade-long performance profile of both BTC-USD and WBTCUSD argue against a structural top or a secular breakdown. Crypto-cycle data, ATH clustering and the maturing asset profile all support the view that the market is digesting prior gains in a late-cycle or extended-cycle phase rather than collapsing into a new multi-year winter.
The balanced judgment from this mix is straightforward:
For short-term trading, the bias is cautious to mildly bearish while price sits below roughly $91,000 and above $88,500, with real breakdown risk if $88,500 and then $84,300 fail.
For long-term positioning, the structure remains constructive given the on-chain accumulation, adoption data and long-horizon returns.
Net result: BTC-USD is best classified as a Hold, with tactical downside skew in the near term and structurally bullish potential over the multi-year horizon.

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