Market Overview
Recently, BTC reached a historical high on OKX, peaking at $88,018.60. After breaking through the $80,000 mark, it continued to surge, followed by a noticeable pullback as volatility increased, leading to a significant narrowing of short-term gains. The market quickly shifted from a one-sided optimism to a reassessment of the ability to absorb high-level positions. In this context, three main lines of thought surrounding BTC have gradually become clear: first, extreme price fluctuations have occurred in the BTC/USD1 trading pairs on some platforms, with a brief "flash crash" at high prices, exposing the liquidity vulnerabilities of emerging stablecoin trading pairs; second, the sentiment perception AI + Web3 project HodlHer announced the completion of a $1.5 million strategic financing round, with participation from institutions like Chain Capital, aiming to reconstruct on-chain interaction experiences through the HodlOS system; third, the exchange BTSE publicly provided a cycle judgment for 2026, believing that under the influence of the Federal Reserve's RMPs liquidity plan, BTC prices have the opportunity to rise further to around $98,000. Disagreements in the market regarding the trajectory for 2026 are intensifying: on one hand, the "liquidity support theory" represented by BTSE emphasizes that policy easing and ample funds may continue to elevate crypto asset pricing; on the other hand, some institutions warn of the pullback risks accumulated near historical highs, believing that current pricing has partially overdrawn future expectations.
Flash Crash and Liquidity
Shortly after BTC broke through $88,000 and reached a new high of $88,018.60, some trading platforms experienced severe short-term fluctuations in the BTC/USD1 trading pairs, with prices rapidly dropping from near mainstream spot prices, resulting in a "flash crash" phenomenon, which was quickly corrected. Although the overall time span was limited, the emotional impact was significant. Observing the transaction structure, emerging dollar-pegged assets often have higher liquidity concentration and fewer market-making accounts compared to traditional dollar stablecoins. Once the order book lacks sufficient buy orders at critical price levels or is penetrated by large market orders, the weak order depth can amplify localized shocks into price gaps. Additionally, some new assets often rely on a few market makers to maintain spreads in the early stages; if market-making strategies temporarily contract, slippage and spreads can dramatically widen. Although the flash crash of individual trading pairs did not change BTC's central price across multiple platforms, it could transmit to the overall market through several paths: first, high-leverage traders may be passively triggered to liquidate during abnormal fluctuations, increasing systemic selling pressure; second, arbitrage funds quickly move between different trading pairs, causing temporary disturbances in price discovery; third, the event itself raises market expectations for liquidity discounts, leading investors to demand higher risk premiums when pricing, thus participating in subsequent trends with more conservative positions and leverage.
On-Chain Activity and Funds
From the on-chain data perspective, CryptoRank shows that the average daily active users on the BNB Chain recently reached about 4.32 million, ranking among the leading mainstream L1 public chains, reflecting that by the end of 2025, despite the market being in the historical high range for BTC, on-chain interactions and application usage remain at a high level. In contrast to the price hitting new highs, a certain matching can be observed between funds and user activity: as the price advanced from $80,000 to $88,000, users did not massively exit the public chain ecosystem; instead, they continued to maintain high-frequency operations in scenarios such as DeFi, GameFi, and on-chain trading, indicating that some funds are not merely passively chasing prices but are forming a certain closed-loop cycle on-chain. However, high prices combined with high activity do not necessarily mean that the crypto market has entered a "top range"; it may more likely reflect an improvement in the efficiency of existing funds and a structural migration driven by new narratives. Whether there is still incremental funding space in 2026 hinges on two key points: first, whether traditional finance will release new allocation demands after changes in the macro interest rate environment; second, whether on-chain applications can attract user groups that have not yet entered the market through real usage scenarios. If, within the next year, active data from public chains like BNB Chain can continue to expand on a high base, while the funding structure sees more institutional and long-term capital components, then the current "high price + high activity" pattern may still have room for extension. Conversely, if activity quickly declines from high levels, it may indicate that the current momentum of funds has begun to weaken.
Federal Reserve and BTC
In recent assessments, BTSE views the Federal Reserve's RMPs (Reverse Monetary Policy Adjustments or Liquidity Management Plans) as one of the core variables affecting the crypto market in 2026. Its basic assumption is that after experiencing a previous round of tightening and high-interest rate cycles, the Federal Reserve will substantially release dollar liquidity through a combination of RMPs, including balance sheet management and liquidity tool adjustments, to stabilize growth and financial markets. Within this framework, BTSE's scenario prediction is: if RMPs can continue and gradually strengthen, BTC, which has already reached the historical high of $88,018.60, still has the opportunity to be pushed up to around $98,000; a more aggressive view suggests that if the easing pace resonates with market sentiment, there is a possibility that BTC could attempt to break the $100,000 mark in the first quarter of 2026. Comparing this logic with past cycles reveals that liquidity easing has indeed often coincided with rapid upward movements in crypto assets, but at the same time, deep pullbacks near liquidity turning points have also been common. In the current macro environment, uncertainties such as sticky inflation, fiscal deficits, and geopolitical risks still exist, meaning that whether RMPs can be sustained and to what extent remains variable. In an optimistic scenario, liquidity-driven and narrative expansion could jointly elevate asset prices; whereas in a cautious scenario, if policy rhythms fall short of expectations or market perceptions of a "liquidity peak" change, the extent of high-level pullbacks could also be amplified. For investors, a more reasonable approach is to acknowledge the role of liquidity while also reserving enough safety margins for potential severe fluctuations.
AI Narrative and HodlHer
Beyond the macro and price games, the AI + Web3 narrative is providing new imaginative space for the market. HodlHer recently announced the completion of a $1.5 million strategic financing round, with participation from institutions like Chain Capital. The project aims to combine sentiment perception AI with decentralized execution, hoping to build a new generation of on-chain AI agent infrastructure through the HodlOS system. According to the project team, HodlOS attempts to address the pain points of current mainstream AI agents in long-term memory management, emotional interaction capabilities, and cross-application task orchestration: on one hand, by recording and calling user historical preferences and interaction trajectories on-chain, it aims to achieve longer-term and more continuous decision support; on the other hand, by introducing a sentiment perception module, it enables agents to better understand risk tolerance and behavioral preferences when interacting with users, thus providing more tailored suggestions in trading, wealth management, or governance scenarios. If this technological narrative partially materializes, AI + on-chain agents are expected to lower the entry barriers for new users with lower learning costs and smoother experiences, while enhancing retention and interaction depth for existing users. From the perspective of 2026, if such applications can achieve large-scale penetration in areas like trading strategy assistance, asset allocation advice, on-chain gaming, and social interactions, they may create substantial incremental demand on the demand side, expanding the usage demand for block space and protocol tokens, while also having the opportunity to enhance some users' risk management capabilities in high-volatility market conditions through smarter tools.
Institutional Expectation Divergence
Regarding BTC's path in 2026, institutional views are clearly diverging. On one end is the relatively optimistic camp represented by BTSE, emphasizing that liquidity tools like the Federal Reserve's RMPs may continue to release funds, combined with the real usage reflected by on-chain activity data such as the average of 4.32 million active users on BNB Chain, thus supporting BTC to rise further above the historical high of $88,018.60; on the other end are more conservative voices, arguing that with valuations having been significantly repriced and regulatory uncertainties still present, the risks of high-level pullbacks cannot be ignored. If we break down the divergence into three main lines of liquidity, valuation, and regulatory expectations, we can see the differences in underlying assumptions: optimists typically assume that global liquidity will remain loose around 2026, that risk assets are generally in a "repricing" phase, and that major regulatory jurisdictions will gradually clarify and become more lenient towards compliant exchanges and mainstream crypto assets; conservatives are more concerned about limited marginal improvements in liquidity, the resurgence of traditional asset yield attractiveness, and potential regulatory events suppressing market sentiment. Looking back at past cycles, many institutions tend to give more aggressive target prices near bull market peaks, while often underestimating recovery elasticity during bear market bottoms, with prediction biases being particularly evident during extreme emotional periods. For investors, rather than binding position decisions to a single path, it is better to build a probability distribution for different scenarios based on absorbing multiple viewpoints and to hedge against losses from predictive errors through phased positions and dynamic exposure adjustments.
2026 Outlook
From the current point in time, the outlook for BTC in 2026 needs to incorporate multiple variables, including price, on-chain activity, macro liquidity, and new narratives. In the baseline scenario, BTC has reached a historical high of $88,018.60 on OKX, public chains like BNB Chain maintain an average of about 4.32 million daily active users, the Federal Reserve's RMPs and other policy tools have released liquidity to some extent, and the AI + Web3 direction is gradually exploring implementation driven by projects like HodlHer. Under this combination, the probability of BTC maintaining a relatively high level with significant volatility is high; whereas in a risk scenario, if macro liquidity improvements fall short of expectations or if the global regulatory environment tightens beyond expectations, the possibility of high-level pullbacks or even deeper adjustments needs to be taken seriously. The recent flash crash event in the USD1 trading pair has already exposed the vulnerabilities at the micro-structural level of the market: insufficient order book depth for a single trading pair, high concentration of market-making, and improper risk control parameter settings can all amplify price noise under extreme conditions. Therefore, in trading practice, whether choosing trading pairs or setting leverage, several principles should be adhered to: prioritize trading pairs with deeper liquidity and more active transactions for diversified trading; use high leverage cautiously, especially avoiding layering multiple risks on emerging stablecoins or niche trading pairs; leave safety space for sudden "spikes," such as reserving sufficient margin and setting reasonable stop-loss and liquidation thresholds. Looking ahead to subsequent trends, the pace of the Federal Reserve's policy implementation and the actual execution of RMPs will directly affect liquidity expectations; while whether AI + Web3 applications can transition from narrative to data, reflected in real active users, on-chain transaction volumes, and protocol revenues, will also determine the actual attractiveness of this narrative to funds. Investors need to maintain continuous tracking of these two clues and dynamically adjust their path assumptions for the 2026 market based on new information, rather than locking positions based on a one-time judgment.
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