Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC’s Next Big Move Is Brewing – Breakout or Breakdown Ahead?

Ripple’s token remains under sustained bearish pressure as price continues to trade within a broader corrective structure. Despite several short-term relief rallies, sellers have maintained control, keeping the market confined below major resistance zones and preventing any meaningful trend reversal.Technical Analysis

By ShayanThe Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, XRP is firmly trading inside a descending channel that has defined the price action since the October peak. Each recovery attempt has been capped by the upper boundary of this channel, reinforcing the dominant bearish structure.

The asset is currently hovering around the $2.03 level, well below both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The 200-day moving average near the $2.50 region has acted as a dynamic resistance, coinciding with a major daily supply zone that previously triggered aggressive sell-offs.

Above current levels, the $2.25 to $2.50 zone remains the most critical resistance area. This region represents a former consolidation range and overlaps with the descending trendline, creating a strong confluence that sellers are likely to defend.

On the downside, the $1.90 to $1.75 demand zone stands out as the most important support area. This region marks the strongest bullish reaction during the correction and sits near the lower boundary of the descending channel. A deeper pullback into this zone would still be considered structurally consistent with the ongoing corrective phase.

As long as XRP remains below the $2.25 level, the broader daily structure favors continuation rather than reversal.

Lean Ventures, a Seoul-headquartered asset manager, has announced that it reached an agreement with NASDAQ-listed Vivo Federation to establish a $300 million fund with Ripple Labs shares. With this new vehicle, South Korean retail investors can get exposure to XRP with no need to buy the physical cryptocurrency.

$300 million Ripple Labs shares deal makes headlines in South Korea: What to know

According to a press release shared yesterday, Dec. 12, a new Ripple Labs shares fund has been launched by Lean Ventures, one of the biggest South Korean asset managers. The deal will be handled with the infrastructure of Vivo Federation, a blockchain unit of VivoPower International PLC.

Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Lean Ventures will arrange for the establishment of a dedicated investment vehicle to acquire and hold an initial target of $300 million in Ripple Labs shares.

Lean Ventures has already canvassed interest from qualified South Korean institutional and retail investors and now increases its bet on digital assets.

VivoPower recently received written approval from Ripple Labs to purchase an initial tranche of Ripple Labs preferred shares and is now negotiating bilaterally to purchase additional Ripple Labs shares from institutional holders of Ripple Labs shares worth an estimated $300 million.

As part of the joint venture, Vivo Federation will receive a share of management fees and performance carry, which would target a net economic return for VivoPower of $75 million over three years based on an initial $300 million in assets under management.

Institutional investors can get exposure to XRP with discount?

As stressed by Adam Traidman, the chairman of VivoPower’s Advisory Council, the endgame goal of this cooperation is to provide more opportunities for investing in XRP and related products for the South Korean market:

We are delighted to have entered into this partnership with Lean Ventures, given its established status and reputation in South Korea. As we have noted previously, South Korea is a highly strategic market for Vivo Federation, given that it is the largest holder by value and number of XRP tokens in the world. With this dedicated investment vehicle, qualifying South Korean institutional and retail investors can gain exposure to Ripple Labs shares and, in turn, XRP at a material discount to the spot price.

Vivo Federation is the digital asset arm of VivoPower, focused on XRPL-based real-world blockchain applications and maintaining exposure to Ripple Labs shares and XRP tokens.

As covered by U.Today previously, 21Shares, a U.S.-based asset manager, is preparing its ETFs on spot XRP for launch.

ZCash (ZEC), a privacy-centric cryptocurrency — an altcoin with obfuscated transactional data — is the best performer of this week amid the top 100 biggest cryptos. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that the privacy coin rally will return in 2025.

ZCash (ZEC) up by 28% in seven days, other privacy coins lagging

In the last seven days, ZCash (ZEC), a large-cap privacy coin, added almost 28% in price. Earlier today, it hit $368, which is the highest price level since Nov. 29. Meme cryptocurrency MemeCore (M), its closest rival, is only up by 23%.CoinGecko">

In the last 24 hours, by contrast, ZCash (ZEC) performed weaker compared to the rest of the market. While the crypto segment benchmark is down by 2.7%, ZEC's price lost 5.6% on surging trading volume.

At the same time, competitive privacy coins Dash (DASH), Decred (DCR), MimbleWimbleCoin (MWC), Verge (XVG) are all in the red.

As covered by U.Today previously, ZCash (ZEC) was the central coin of the Q4, 2025 privacy coins euphoria. In just three months between mid-August and mid-November, ZEC's price surged by 20x.

The local peak — $705 per ZEC coin on Nov. 17 — is the highest price for ZCash (ZEC) in almost seven years. The absolute ZCash (ZEC) price ATH was registered over $3,191 in October 2016.

Monero (XMR) dethrones ZCash (ZEC) and becomes biggest privacy coin again

Such an impressive run was catalyzed by institutional interest in ZEC. Backed by Winklevoss twins, Leap Therapeutics rebranded to Cypherpunk Technologies and became the first ever ZEC digital asset treasury company.

Also, investing heavyweight Grayscale filed for the first exchange-traded fund in the U.S. backed by spot ZCash (ZEC) holdings.

ZCash (ZEC) even replaced Monero (XMR) as the largest privacy coin. However, this week, Monero's (XMR) market cap hit $7.6 billion, while ZCash (ZEC) dropped to $7.2 billion. Monero (XMR) and ZCash (ZEC) are the 26th and 26th biggest cryptocurrencies, respectively.

The Bitcoin market is experiencing a gradual trend reversal following weeks of prolonged price correction between October and November. However, recent on-chain data reveals a concerning trend around BTC’s bullish structure.

Bitcoin IFP Indicator Suggests Market Has Reached Turning Point 

Popular analytics page Arab Chain has shared a cautionary insight on the Bitcoin market despite the moderate price recovery in recent weeks. After Bitcoin suffered a 36.5% correction from its all-time high at $126,000, the market leader has lately experienced a significant rebound, rising from $80,000 to as high as $94,000 in the past three weeks. 

However, data from the Bitcoin Inter-Exchange Flow Pulse (IFP) suggests the upward price momentum might be short-lived. For perspective, the Bitcoin IFP measures the net movement of Bitcoin between exchanges over a given period. Arab Chain explains the IFP indicator continues to trend downward, after breaking below its 90-day moving average (MA), suggesting a weakening market participation amid fewer “bullish” flows between exchanges.

Furthermore, the IFP also sits in the red zone, which historically coincides with or precedes a correction period or weak structural momentum that could precede a broader downtrend. Combined, these developments imply the Bitcoin market is at a critical junction, as there is a reduction in exchange flows that has historically supported the price rallies in past market phases.

Is The Bullish Run Over?

Amidst the structural weakness highlighted by the IFP indicator, Arab Chain also noted that the price remains relatively high compared to previous levels in similar situations. The analysts explain that this suggests price and inflows are temporarily moving irrespective of each other. Based on historical data, such detachments usually indicate a prolonged price consolidation or a significant period of extended sideways movement until inter-exchange flows can reestablish market dominance. 

Therefore, the Bitcoin bullish structure is not collapsing into a bearish state. However, the IFP metric developments suggest there may not be sustained upward movement in the short term due to the structural slowdown in inter-exchange flows. Moreover, price is likely to become sensitive to changes in the market liquidity. Therefore, there is also significant potential for another correction.

At press time, Bitcoin trades at $90,338, reflecting a 1.82% decline in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, daily trading volume is up by 34.64% and valued at $82.68 billion. According to Arab Chain, a continuous price rebound will only occur if the IFP successfully reclaims its 90-day MA, thereby signaling an increase in bullish exchange flows.

Although Solana has been on a downward trajectory, investors betting on the asset via Solana Funds have maintained resilience as the spot Solana ETFs have maintained a steady inflow streak for seven consecutive days.

According to data provided by Farside Investors, the Solana ETFs have maintained positive daily flows in recent sessions across the broad Solana ETF ecosystem.

While it appears that investors are pouring in less capital compared to the previous month, the funds have experienced steady but low daily performance, extending a seven-day inflow streak that has renewed momentum for the sector.

Solana ETFs near $700 million in inflows

The data further shows that the Solana ETFs have recorded nearly $700 million in cumulative flows since their emergence a few months ago.

This signals sustained institutional interest in the Solana ecosystem despite the unstable market conditions fueling high volatility across crypto markets.

This rapid growth is not a surprise as the ETFs have been seeing strong demand since the launch of the first Solana ETF. Per the data, the strongest single-day inflows were recorded shortly after launch.

Thereafter, daily inflows have moderated since then, highlighting growing confidence among investors seeking regulated exposure to Solana.

While Bitwise has continued to dominate the sector, the huge growth in the overall inflows is all thanks to the strong contributions from Bitwise’s BSOL and Grayscale’s GSOL ETFs.

With the largest portion of the cumulative inflows coming from Bitwise, the fund had led the pack with $608.9 million in total inflows. This rapid growth witnessed by the Solana ETFs is largely attributed to its early traction and consistent demand since launch.

Furthermore, the Grayscale Solana ETF follows with $97.8 million, while Franklin’s Solana ETD has attracted $54.8 million over the same period.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that all listed Solana ETFs currently offer staking exposure, a feature that continues to differentiate them from many traditional crypto investment products.

In a recent tweet, Ripple CTO David Schwartz shares a hilarious moment with Chris Larsen, Ripple chairman and co-founder, at an event, describing it as perhaps the funniest thing that has ever happened in his time at Ripple.

December continues to be a busy month for Ripple, having made key appearances at major crypto events, including Binance Blockchain Week, which was held in Dubai from Dec. 3 to 4. Ripple also participated in Fintech Abu Dhabi event, which was held from Dec. 8 to 11.

Ripple also indicated its participation at the Blockchain for Europe Summit at Brussels, Belgium, held Dec. 2 to 3, and Ripple Christmas Breakfast in London, U.K., on Dec. 11.

In one of such events, which had himself, Chris Larsen, employees of Ripple and its recent acquisitions in attendance, Ripple CTO David Schwartz recalls an awkward moment when a new employee from one of its recent acquisitions walked up to Larsen and asked, "So..What do you do at Ripple?"

Obviously taken aback by the question, Schwartz said he was "kind of busy laughing inside" describing the moment as being funny.

In response to an X user's question on what the Ripple chairman answered, Schwartz said, "But I think it went something like: Um. Well. I guess, I'm sort of the founder."

2025 was a watershed year for Ripple in its operations as it made four major acquisitions: GTreasury, Rail, Palisade and Hidden Road. Ripple has invested nearly $4 billion into the crypto ecosystem through strategic investments and acquisitions.

December turns out big for Ripple

On Dec. 11, Ripple revealed that it had completed the acquisition of Rail, with the potential of making Ripple Payments, the market's most comprehensive end-to-end stablecoin solution.

Earlier in December, Ripple announced it had closed a $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury, which marks a significant expansion into the multi-trillion-dollar corporate finance arena, a market many predict will lead the next phase of digital asset adoption.

In huge news for Ripple, according to CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple has received conditional approval from the OCC to charter Ripple National Trust Bank. This is a massive step forward — first for the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin, setting the highest standard for stablecoin compliance with both federal (OCC) and state (NYDFS) oversight.