Bitcoin risks first post-halving year red candle with price stuck at $88K

Bitcoin (BTC) eyed weekend highs into Sunday’s weekly close with the yearly candle in focus.

Key points:

• Bitcoin sees an eerily calm weekend as analysis eyes a three-day bullish divergence locking in.
• It may take until the new year for capital to redeploy and the BTC price situation to change.
• Bitcoin is down 6% for the year, potentially marking a bearish post-halving record.

New year could bring $100,000 BTC price

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action nearing $88,000 after two days of barely any volatility.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Friday had seen familiar fakeout moves as liquidity hunts accompanied a record $24 billion options expiry event. As Cointelegraph reported, this was thought to be acting as a suppressing force on price.

Now, bullish arguments included a key relative strength index (RSI) divergence on three-day timeframes.

“Bitcoin locked in a three-day bullish divergence, right on top of key support,” trader Jelle wrote in an X post on the topic.

“The previous two bottoms formed with 3-day divergences as well. Time for history to repeat?”

BTC/USD three-day chart with RSI data. Source: Jelle/X

Trader BitBull put faith in seasonality when it came to a BTC price rebound. Institutions, he argued, would begin allocating capital to "underperforming assets” in early January.

“This could trigger a breakout from this trendline and a move towards $100K will happen,” he predicted Friday.

$BTC has probably 5-6 days of sideways price action left.

As 2025 ends, this is what going to happen:

- Those who sold at a loss for tax harvesting will buyback BTC

- Investors will allocate into underperforming assets in Jan 2026 as they always do.

This could trigger a… pic.twitter.com/3NejU5j2do— BitBull (@AkaBull_) December 26, 2025

Trader and analyst Aksel Kibar was unsurprised by Bitcoin’s range-bound behavior and lack of volatility given the sharp upside during Q3.

“Volatility is cyclical,” he told X followers.

“High volatility is now followed by low volatility until we find a clean chart pattern setup to capitalize on.”

BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Aksel Kibar/X

Bitcoin yearly candle challenges four-year cycle

With days to go until the 2025 yearly candle close, Bitcoin still risked making bearish history.

Related: Bitcoin ETFs lose $825M in five days as US becomes 'biggest seller' of BTC

Currently down 6.1% year-to-date, BTC/USD was on track for its first “red” post-halving year in history.

This led some to argue that the concept of BTC price action moving in four-year cycles no longer matched reality.

Bitcoin has 4 days left to close the yearly candle green

If it closes in red then it would be the first in 14 years for a 3rd bull-market year....signaling a structural shift and breaking the 4-year cycle thesis pic.twitter.com/JjQ8QVtC6f— Ajay Kashyap (@EverythingAjay) December 27, 2025

Keith Alan, cofounder of trading resource Material Indicators, suggested that the yearly candle’s color would be of major importance.

“Wicks beyond key levels are to be expected - it’s closes that matter most,” he wrote on Christmas Day alongside a chart from one of Material Indicators’ proprietary trading tools.

“Keeping with the holiday spirit, I’m most interested in whether or not we see a red or green candle to close Q4 and the Year, and I’ll be looking for new macro insights from Trend Precognition at the January open.”

BTC/USD 12-month chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Alan said that the yearly open around $93,500 could still come in for a last-minute retest.

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