Asian markets are up today, while ETH, SOL, and ADA slide towards weekly lows.

Asian markets today have recorded a significantly stronger performance compared to the rest of the global financial landscape, pushing regional stock indices to new all-time highs. However, the slowdown of major cryptocurrencies tells a completely different story, highlighting a deep gap between the strength of traditional assets and the structural weakness characterizing the digital sector at this stage.

While Asian stocks and emerging markets accelerate, Bitcoin remains stuck below (90,000, unable to benefit from the weaker dollar and the risk appetite dominating Asian markets today. The largest cryptocurrency is trading around )88,350 with a 0.89% decline over the last 24 hours, reflecting the fragility that continues to characterize the sector after a week of forced liquidations and uncertain consolidation.

The contrast between the solidity of Asian stocks and the crash of cryptocurrencies

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has reached a new all-time high, while emerging markets have extended gains with a dynamic that should have also lifted cryptocurrencies. Yet, when observing how the main tokens move, a disturbing disconnection emerges: ETH has slipped to 2,960, Solana is down 2.60% at 123.66, while Cardano retreats 1.76% to 0.35. XRP, despite positive flows toward US spot ETFs (91.72 million inflow this month), still registers a 1.51% decline, sitting at 1.89.

The disconnection between Asian markets today and the behavior of tokens reflects a structural reality: cryptocurrencies are not behaving as assets correlated with economic fundamentals, but as a pure extension of risk appetite, with amplified volatility and sensitivity to market sentiment.

Bitcoin and altcoins: why is resistance below 90,000 so solid

Bitcoin briefly touched 98,000 at the beginning of the week before suffering forced liquidations of over $1 billion. Since then, prices have crystallized into a static consolidation, neither rising decisively nor collapsing further, creating a kind of standoff that is testing traders’ patience. The 90,000 level represents a crucial psychological threshold: every attempt to break above it seems to encounter coordinated resistance, while the levels below maintain support only thanks to post-liquidation consolidation.

Most large-cap tokens remain down between 7% and 12% over the past week, a deterioration suggesting that sentiment remains fragile despite the calmer macroeconomic context characterizing today’s Asian markets and globally.

Liquidations, sentiment, and the structural fragility of the crypto market

According to Wenny Cai, COO of Synfutures, cryptocurrencies continue to operate mainly as volatility amplifiers rather than defensive assets. “The liquidation phase has eliminated excessive leverage,” the analyst explained, “but uncertainty regarding policies, financing costs, and regulation is keeping investors selective rather than aggressive.”

This positioning reveals that traders still consider cryptocurrencies as a high-beta extension of the global risk appetite, reacting more to changes in the dollar, bond yields, and stock markets than to sector-specific developments. The weaker dollar, which would historically provide support to Bitcoin, has not generated the expected push because investors currently prefer assets with more visible and predictable cash flows or yields.

What to expect from the next moves of Asian markets today and from crypto

With the opening of the US session, traders will closely watch whether the strength demonstrated by Asian markets today during trading will translate into a rally effect on cryptocurrencies, or if Bitcoin will remain stuck below the psychological threshold of 90,000 while confidence gradually rebuilds after an extremely volatile start to the year.

The crypto market currently appears trapped in a strategic waiting phase, where the positive dynamics of Asian markets today and global equities have yet to effectively penetrate the pessimism characterizing the sentiment of the digital sector. The next move will depend on Bitcoin’s ability to find a stable base of institutional buying and on the clarity that will emerge from global monetary policies.