Bitcoin (BTC) Price Shackled, Zcash (ZEC) Outperforms Before Fed: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market lacks clear direction. Bitcoin BTC$90,414.15 is still in its boring range-play between $90,000 and $95,000, and there’s little cheer in the broader market, as evidenced by over 2% declines in the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) and CoinDesk 80 (CD80) indexes. ZEC is the only major token to have gained more than 3% over 24 hours.

The lackluster action could be due to traders pushing back any plans for bullish bets until after the tomorrow’s Fed’s interest-rate meeting, which could bring volatility.

“Mindful of the potential for significant two-sided volatility pre and post the FOMC event, clients seeking to increase upside exposures for Q1 2026 have expressed a preference to defer execution until after the event, and we expect this flow will notably increase during the latter part of this week,” TDX Strategies’ founder Dick Lo said in a market note.

The Fed meeting kicks off today and will conclude tomorrow, a 25 basis-point rate cut is priced in. Some traders are worried that the decision could be accompanied by hawkish forward guidance, pointing to slower easing in 2026.

These expectations could set the stage for a rally, according to CF Benchmarks.

“If we look at Fed funds futures today, the market is pricing in a rate cut on Wednesday, but not another one until June. We believe there’s some room for upside here should the Fed signal that there is potential for another cut before the June meeting. That becomes more likely if the labor market continues to soften and inflation expectations stay in the 2–3% range,” the index provider said in an email to CoinDesk.

Key metrics like the cumulative volume delta (CVD) indicate continued dominance of sellers in the spot market.

“Spot flows remain soft. Spot CVD dropped from –$40M to –$111M, signaling persistent sell flow even as price holds at $90K,” said Timothy Misir, the head of research at BRN.

In other news, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s proposal to make Ethereum transactions more predictable and create a trustless onchain gas futures market is grabbing eyeballs.

Crypto exchange KuCoin released a Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Gateway proof-of-concept, an experimental prototype gateway system designed to integrate quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms.

In traditional markets, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield continued to increase, hitting three-month highs, and the yen traded weak despite the BOJ rate-hike expectations. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.

• Crypto
  • Dec. 9: Twenty One Capital begins trading on NYSE under ticker XXI following business combination with Cantor Equity Partners (CEP).
• Macro
  • Dec. 9, 7 a.m.: Mexico Nov. inflation rate. Headline YoY Est. 3.69%, MoM Est. 0.56%. Core YoY Est. 4.34%, MoM Est. 0.10%.
  • Dec. 9, 8:15 a.m.: ADP Employment Change Weekly (Prev. -13.5K).
  • Dec. 9, 10 a.m.: The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report. Sept. Job Openings Est. 7.2M, Sept. Job Quits (Prev. 3.091M).
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.

• Governance votes & calls
  • ENS DAO is voting on a “temperature check” to commission an independent retrospective of its operations and spending over the past two years. Voting ends Dec. 9.
  • CoW DAO is voting on CIP-76 to approve a 2026 budget of 13.8 million USDC and a 100 million COW token top-up for its Core Team’s operations and incentives. Voting ends Dec. 9.
  • GnosisDAO is voting on GIP-144 to renew Blockscout’s hosting and SLA services for the 2026 calendar year. Voting ends Dec. 9.
• Unlocks
• Token Launches
  • Dec. 9: HumidiFi’s WET token claiming period starts, liquidity pools go live.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead”.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 1.27% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $90.255,53 (24hrs: -2.09%)
• ETH is down 0.84% at $3,106.60 (24hrs: -1.73%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 0.87% at 2,877.34 (24hrs: -2.11%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 3 bps at 2.81%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0068% (7.46% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is little changed at 99.05
• Gold futures are up 0.37% at $4,233.50
• Silver futures are up 1.14% at $59.07
• Nikkei 225 closed up 0.14% at 50,655.10
• Hang Seng closed down 1.29% at 25,434.23
• FTSE is up 0.13% at 9,657.24
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.16% at 5,716.21
• DJIA closed on Monday down 0.45% at 47,739.32
• S&P 500 closed down 0.35% at 6,846.51
• Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.14% at 23,545.90
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.45% at 31,169.97
• S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged at 3.127,62
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 1.4 bps at 4.158%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.08% at 6,861.25
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.04% at 25,673.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.11% at 47,846.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.24% (unchanged)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03444 (unchanged)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,042 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $38.26
• Total Fees: 2.61 BTC / $237,648
• CME Futures Open Interest: 121,520 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 21.4 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 6.04%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows BTC’s daily price action in candlestick format.
• BTC has printed higher lows and highs since Nov. 21, carving out a mini-ascending channel within a broader downtrend.
• In other words, the recent rise represents a temporary relief rally and needs to extend beyond $96,600. That would confirm a breakout from the downtrend, reviving the bullish outlook.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $274.2 (+1.66%), pre-market down 0.71% to $272.26
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $83.96 (-1.94%), -0.98% at $83.21
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $26.09 (+2.27%), +0.8% at $26.3
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $45.93 (-1.12%), unchanged
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.05 (+2.64%), -1.24% at $11.9
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.96 (unchanged), -0.87% at $14.83
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.69 (+3.39%), -0.17% at $17.66
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $13.89 (+1.28%), -0.43% at $13.83
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $46.43 (+1.98%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $14.84 (+1.57%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $183.69 (+2.63%), -1.05% at $181.77
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $19.77 (+5.89%), unchanged.
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $11.06 (+3.17%), -1.45% at $10.90
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.61 (-1.88%), +1.53% at $2.65
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.72 (+2.99%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$60.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $57.54 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.3 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $35.5 million
• Cumulative net flows: $12.93 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.25 million

Source: Farside Investors

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