Since the crash on the 10th of October, the crypto market has not seen a strong renewed bullish sentiment. In fact, Bitcoin [BTC] decoupled from gold after the deleveraging event and has underperformed it in 2025 and early 2026.
While gold and silver printed new highs above $5K and $110, Bitcoin dropped to $86k and may retest its recent low of $80.6k if the weakness persists.
Ethereum [ETH] also remained range-bound between $2.8k and $3.2k since November, retesting $2.8k after the recent BTC dip.
Commenting on the crypto market’s weakness, Fundstrat’s founder and head of research, Tom Lee, cited the last liquidation cascade and the metals rally as driving the muted price action.
“The precious metals’ move has sucked alot of oxygen out of the room. So crypto prices aren’t keeping up with fundamentals. But when fundamentals go to the right, prices do follow.”
Lee, who doubles as chairman of Bitmine Immersion, the world’s largest ETH treasury firm, concluded that,
“As long as gold and silver rise, there’s FOMO to buy that instead of BTC. But when gold and silver take a break, that would lead to Bitcoin and Ethereum surge afterward.”
Bitmine stakes over half of its ETH holdings
That said, BitMine has staked over half of its holdings of +4 million ETH. In the past few hours, the firm scooped up an additional 20k ETH and staked another whopping $610 million in ETH (209,540 coins).
This brought its overall staking stash to over 2.2 million ETH, worth $6.5 billion, or 52% of its overall holdings.
Source: X/Lookonchain
Interestingly, ETH staking demand hit a record after crossing 30% of the total ETH supply, with several U.S. spot ETH ETFs lined up to seek yield on their holdings.
But this is not the only positive fundamental for ETH that has been climbing higher. Daily transaction counts hit a new high, while the average transfer cost across the chain has fallen to a relatively low, competitive level.
Will ETH price remain range-bound?
Despite ETH’s price lagging, Lee believes it will eventually catch up to the fundamentals.
On the weekly liquidation map, the key levels to watch ahead of the Fed rate decision were $2.98K and $2.85K, which were crucial liquidity pools for leveraged shorts and longs, respectively.
In most cases, volatility swings triggered by liquidity grabs always push price action toward these key pools.
Source: Coinglass
Final Thoughts
- Fundstrat’s Lee believes the ongoing gold and silver boom will continue to keep traders away from crypto.
- BitMine has scaled its staked ETH to 2.2 million, representing 52% of its overall holdings.
