BitcoinMarkets
|2 min ReadBitcoin Rally Fails as $90,000 Support Weakens
Maya Chen
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
An early Friday squeeze toward $92,000 was met with immediate selling pressure, forcing Bitcoin back into a defensive stance at the $90,000 mark. This failure is particularly grim because it occurred while the Nasdaq jumped 1% and the S&P 500 rose 0.8%. The fact that Bitcoin is shedding 1% of its value while traditional risk assets and gold surge suggests that crypto-specific liquidity is drying up as the broader market pivots elsewhere.
The December jobs report arrived as a mixed bag of disappointment, showing a measly 50,000 new positions against the 60,000 forecast. While unemployment technically fell to 4.4%, consumer sentiment data reveals a worrying trend: inflation expectations have crept up to 4.2%. This surge in perceived inflation is a toxic cocktail for Bitcoin bulls, as it justifies a "higher for longer" stance from the Fed, effectively strangling the cheap leverage that crypto thrives on.
SCOTUS Silence and the Mining Pivot
Institutional "watchers" who expected a Supreme Court verdict on the Trump tariff regime were left with nothing on Friday morning. Because the court delayed its ruling until at least next Wednesday, the market remains paralyzed by the threat of massive trade disruption. This uncertainty hit crypto proxies the hardest, with MicroStrategy (MSTR) cratering 5.6% and Coinbase (COIN) dropping 2.3% as traders fled the lack of regulatory clarity.
The only winners in this stagnant tape are the miners who have aggressively pivoted to AI infrastructure. While pure-play crypto assets bled, Hut 8 (HUT) and Core Scientific (CORZ) managed to climb up to 4% by selling their compute power rather than their hash rate. This divergence proves that "the market" is currently hunting for AI-driven revenue, leaving Bitcoin to languish in a low-conviction range as it waits for a judicial catalyst that never came.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.