Bitcoin price enters 2026 with various expectations. Some are calling for an increase towards $200,000, like Tom Lee. Others, including veteran trader Peter Brandt, warn of deeper weakness ahead of renewed testing.
Still, voices like YoungHoon Kim argue that the recent dips appear like a short lived manipulation before strength returns. In the face of contradictory predictions, the reality lies somewhere between fear and euphoria. We delve deeper to see which signs are most significant on the chart and on-chain as we start the brand new 12 months.
December pattern and a ground signal that has not yet triggered
Bitcoin ends December back within the red (almost there). That was already vital. Since 2022, each time Bitcoin closed December in red, January turned green. This pattern helped lay the muse for each bullish move in 2025 – including the April 2025 rally that ultimately drove BTC price to a high of $126,000 in October.
Bitcoin price history: CryptoRank
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The same setup appears in the mean time. And the explanation for the reddish December lies with short-term BTC holders.
Short-term holder NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss), tracking the profit and loss sentiment of recent buyers, stays within the capitulation zone. The last time this happened was in April 2025, which marked a bottom and helped start the run to the high of $126,000 in October 2025.
This time the identical give up signal appeared. On November twenty first, short-term holders NUPL reached -0.27, even surpassing the April low. Today it’s around −0.14 and continues to be within the capitulation range. The lower signal is technically present. The response just isn’t.
Surrender Metric: Glassnode
Speaking to BeInCrypto, Hunter Rogers, co-founder of world Bitcoin yield protocol TeraHash, highlighted how meaningful this metric is:
“Speaking of on-chain signals to look at out for, for me it’s the behavior of short-term holders versus the steadiness of long-term holders. As long as long-term holders remain stable, the cycle survives,” he said.
So if April's capitulation helped form a bottom that later catapulted Bitcoin to recent highs, the query today is easy:
Why hasn't the identical signal triggered an analogous bullish response yet? The answer lies within the behavior of long-term holders.
And that leads us to the following section: The groups that normally step in to soak up this capitulation – long-term holders and whales – weren’t fully present this time. And they're still not quite there, weakening the lead by 2026.
Long-term owners resign
Long-term holders (LTHs) typically step in when short-term holders capitulate. They absorb the availability, stabilize the worth and start the following phase. This happened in April 2025. At that point, LTH net accumulation peaked at 22,237 BTC in sooner or later and remained within the green throughout. This created a buffer for the worth to get better.
This time the pillow is thinner.
Long-term holders have been selling since October 1st. They eventually stopped, however the purchases were modest. The recent peak (December 2025) of LTH accumulation is 4,862 BTC and is closer to three,500 BTC on most days. That's almost 20% of the strength in April.
The signal has improved, but just isn’t strong enough to show the market around by itself by 2026.
Rogers explained how vital this group is to the survival of the cycle:
“As long as long-term holders remain stable, the cycle survives. The continued stability of long-term holders supports outcomes where Bitcoin stays in a reset phase and potentially moves higher over time,” he said.
So the steadiness is there. Not the aggression. And without aggression, rallies stall.
Whales go quiet, and that changes the whole lot
Then there are the whales.
The variety of whale wallets holding 10,000-100,000 BTC stays at a one-year low. These wallets bottomed out in April and continued to rise until July. This uptrend supported the run to $126,000. Today the other is the case. The whales' lack of absorption leaves a spot. This gap is why the November capitulation didn’t push the worth up in the identical way because it did in April.
Rogers also highlighted this dynamic:
“Retail continues to be reacting late, while whales are inclined to suck up all the availability in periods of weakness. This pattern shows itself repeatedly,” he points out.
At the moment the separation is evident. There was a short-term capitulation, but long-term holders and whales aren’t any longer absorbing supply like they did before major BTC bullish periods. Whales aren’t yet acting as shock absorbers, leaving the market vulnerable to collapse pressure reasonably than breakout momentum.
Rogers warned that this has a direct impact on bullish targets:
“So can Bitcoin rise above $150,000 in 2026? Possibly. But it requires patience, liquidity, broader institutional adoption and time,” he said
He also rejected probably the most aggressive forecasts:
“Various scenarios of Bitcoin reaching $250,000 or more this 12 months aren’t realistic to me at this point,” he added
This somewhat contradicts the aggressive Bitcoin price predictions of the likes of Tom Lee and YoungHoon Kim, not less than for now.
According to Tom Lee:
Ethereum could reach $7,000 to $9,000 in early 2026
Bitcoin could move towards $200,000 in 2026
Ethereum has a longer-term path towards $20,000
Instead of calling it a “supercycle,” he describes this as a fundamental shift in market structure. pic.twitter.com/uaCmAUUD4u
— Clockwise Crypto (@clockwisecrypto) December 27, 2025
But the actual query is, despite the short-term capitulation sign, why are long-term holders and whales not jumping in aggressively? The answer lies within the chart and inside the price structure.
What the Bitcoin price chart says about 2026
On the three-day chart, Bitcoin is inside what appears to be a bearish flag.
The measured movement of this structure carries a risk of failure of roughly 36%. This risk is growing as two bearish EMA crossovers are close to one another. EMAs are moving averages that react more quickly to cost. The 50-period EMA is approaching the 100-period EMA and the 20-period EMA is approaching the 200-period EMA.
If each cross, it can suggest weakness because the flag tests support near $86,420. This combination may explain why whales and other deep partitions are still cautious, indicating behavioral concerns.
Hunter Rogers told BeInCrypto the identical thing:
“Bitcoin’s moves in 2026 shall be driven more by behavior around cost and risk,” he said
At the moment this behavior is stuck. The whales aren’t committing and the worth is struggling to get out of this range.
For the uptrend to matter, Bitcoin must reclaim $105,200. That would invalidate the breakdown forecast. If that is the case, the previous high of $126,000 might be reached again and even exceeded.
As Rogers put it:
“The market has already peaked at around $126,000, but this alone doesn’t end the cycle. What ends it’s a forced selling below collective cost,” he believes.
This “collective cost” is near the realized price within the mid-$50,000 range.
Rogers called this his line within the sand:
“As long as the worth stays well above the broad realized cost range across the mid-$50,000 mark, the market structure is stable,” he emphasized
A sustained decline below this zone would reverse the outlook and will coincide with the lower bear flag goal near $38,630. This move would jeopardize the structure and force long-term holders to incur losses. Above $105,260 the structure improves.
The structure collapses below the mid-$50,000 level. This is why the $58,000 level on the chart is essential.
What’s next for BTC in 2026?
At the moment, the situation with Bitcoin is pretty straightforward and straightforward:
- The lower signal has appeared. (STH give up)
- The claim that normally follows just isn’t the case. (Whales and Hodlers)
- Above this lies a bearish chart setup. (Bear flag mishap looms loom)
A breakout above $105,000 or a crash below $83,300 could answer the query the market keeps avoiding: Will there be a brand new Bitcoin price peak or one other crash in 2026?
The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: What to Expect from BTC in 2026 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Article source: beincrypto.com
The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: What to Expect from BTC in 2026 appeared first on Crypto Adventure.
