80,000 represents a medium- to long-term bottom; some assets are extremely attractive.

On December 2nd, the Federal Reserve's "quantitative tightening" (QT), which lasted for more than three years, officially ended. Since its launch in June 2022, the Fed's balance sheet has shrunk by approximately $2.4 trillion, reducing its total size from a historical peak of nearly $9 trillion to approximately $6.6 trillion. The continued balance sheet reduction has had a significant impact on market liquidity. As a key indicator of banking system liquidity, bank reserves fell below the $2.8 trillion mark in early October, gradually approaching the lower limit of what the Fed considers an "adequate" level. At the same time, the benchmark interest rate reflecting the cost of short-term dollar funding—the secured overnight funding rate—jumped 18 basis points to 4.22% on October 31st due to tightening liquidity, marking the largest single-day increase since 2023. This round of liquidity tightening has also been one of the important reasons for the downward pressure on the prices of most global risk assets since late October. However, the recent liquidity crunch has shown signs of easing. The market generally expects that after ending QT, the Federal Reserve will quickly shift to "technical balance sheet expansion" to stabilize the financial system. Goldman Sachs predicts that the Fed may launch a "reserve management purchase" program in January 2026—directly purchasing approximately $20 billion in Treasury bills monthly and reinvesting approximately $20 billion in maturing MBS principal into Treasury bills each month to absorb the growth in liabilities such as cash in circulation, and gradually raising reserve levels to over $3 trillion. With improved liquidity expectations, risk assets such as US stocks, gold, and cryptocurrencies have recently stabilized and rebounded. Compared to traditional risk assets like US stocks, the recent rebound in cryptocurrencies has been significantly weaker. Behind this, besides the shared macro liquidity pressure, it is also constrained by its own negative factors: on the one hand, the continued tightening of the global regulatory environment has suppressed the willingness of incremental funds to allocate; on the other hand, the previous sharp deleveraging process weakened the overall trading depth and liquidity foundation, making its response to positive factors such as improved macro liquidity relatively slow. However, this irrational "overshooting" in the market, while exacerbating risks, has also opened a valuable window of opportunity for identifying and allocating truly valuable assets. Currently, some astute capital is beginning to filter out market noise and make "contrarian investments" in core assets. One typical example is the operation of Multicoin Capital: on October 11, when the market experienced a sharp correction, the institution bought 210,000 AAVE at an average price of $244; subsequently, on November 25 and 26, when the price further fell to approximately $177 and $178, it added 61,637 and 60,000 AAVE respectively, clearly executing a "buy more as the price falls" strategy within a month and a half.

Coincidentally, as ETH fell from $4,200 to $2,600, Bitmine also exhibited a similar contrarian accumulation pattern. Especially after the price of Ethereum fell below $3,000, its buying pace accelerated significantly, with a recent weekly increase of 96,798 ETH, a week-on-week growth of 38.63%, also demonstrating a "buy more as the price falls" strategy. Despite its continuously shrinking net asset value premium, even approaching 1 at one point, Bitmine's holding decisions showed no hesitation. This indicates that its financing channels remain open and it has the ability to maintain liquidity at low market levels, and also reflects the institution's strong confidence in Ethereum's long-term fundamentals—the current valuation has entered its recognized value range, and short-term fluctuations do not affect its long-term investment logic.

Over the past week, market concerns about the continued decline in MicroStrategy's (MSTR) stock price have intensified. The continuous plunge in stock price has not only severely damaged the company's refinancing capabilities but has also led the market to question its ability to maintain its Nasdaq 100 index membership. What worries investors even more is that if MSTR is forced to sell its Bitcoin holdings due to liquidity pressures—currently representing about 3% of the total circulating supply—it will trigger a chain reaction, causing a huge shock to the price of Bitcoin. Currently, some short sellers have already positioned themselves accordingly, predicting that MSTR may fall into a vicious cycle of "falling stock price → forced reduction of Bitcoin holdings → shrinking collateral value → further pressure on stock price," thereby amplifying the volatility and systemic risk of the entire crypto market. However, while the market is hotly debating this bearish logic, the real short sellers are quietly leaving the market. According to data from Market Chameleon, the difference between the implied volatility of one-year Bitcoin put and call options has narrowed significantly from 13.9 on November 21st to 0.9 on December 5th. This change indicates that institutional traders are no longer heavily betting on further declines in MSTR, and market sentiment is undergoing a subtle shift. According to recent on-chain heatmap data, "super whales" with Bitcoin holdings exceeding 10,000 coins have shown a continuous net increase in holdings over the past two weeks, with the intensity of their purchases gradually increasing. Meanwhile, mid-sized whales with holdings between 100 and 1,000 coins have also maintained an active buying pace over the past two months, significantly expanding their accumulated holdings. These high-net-worth investors' purchases were generally concentrated during the final stages of panic selling, clearly indicating their intention to buy at the bottom. In conclusion, judging from the current adjustment range and market structure, the market has entered a bottoming-out phase. Bitcoin prices may fluctuate and consolidate around $80,000 in the short term, but over a longer period, the $80,000 area is highly likely to constitute a medium- to long-term bottom. From an absolute valuation perspective, many fundamentally sound, high-quality tokens are now attractive for long-term strategic allocation.