Bitcoin briefly broke below $83,000 late Monday, as thin liquidity, a weekend macro scare out of Japan, and mounting fears over a potential MSCI methodology change converged into a fast, disorderly move lower.
Prices hovered above $85,000 during Asian hours on Tuesday morning, with XRP, ether , Cardano’s ADA, Solana’s SOL and BNB Chain’s BNB showing losses upto 2%.
Market participants said the drop had little to do with the usual macro triggers and far more to do with the market’s inability to absorb even modest stress in the current environment.
“Bitcoin’s drop below $90,000 is the result of a collision between the fragile market structure and weak liquidity conditions observed over the weekend,” said Farzam Ehsani, CEO of crypto exchange VALR.
“The pressure across markets intensified because the order book was shallow, and the market lacked sufficient depth to withstand another macroeconomic liquidity shock,” he added.
Some traders are increasingly focused on a separate structural issue: MSCI’s pending decision on whether to exclude companies whose balance sheets are heavily concentrated in cryptocurrencies from its global indices.
The proposal affects firms collectively holding more than $137 billion in digital assets — including Strategy, Marathon, Riot, Metaplanet, and American Bitcoin — representing roughly 5% of all bitcoin in existence.
Ehsani said the market is already attempting to price in the possibility of forced flows from index funds, should any of these companies be reclassified.
“Any rule change automatically triggers a review of their holdings, potentially leading to forced sell-offs of these companies’ shares and triggering significant capital flows,” Ehasani said. Investors, he added, are now bracing for “short-term imbalances associated with forced capital flows.”
December’s poor start also capped a weak November for bitcoin, which finished down 17.5% in one of its largest monthly declines in three years.
A sustained break below roughly $80,500 would open the door to a deeper move toward the $64,000 technical target watched by some traders.
“If the market continues to decline, Bitcoin could test the $60,000-$65,000 range. At these levels, major institutional players, including Strategy’s potential competitors, could become interested in buying up large volumes of Bitcoin,” Ehsani added.
Outside bitcoin, US-listed crypto ETFs continued to see selective inflows. Solana funds have now logged five straight weeks of net buying, adding more than $600 million since late October. Spot XRP ETFs also crossed $666 million in cumulative inflows.
On-chain data from CryptoQuant and Glassnode suggests leverage has been draining from the system, easing some structural risk but not enough to offset the current macro and index-related uncertainty.
