Bitcoin is still stuck under the $95K ceiling, and the market is starting to feel it. 

Price keeps grinding in a tight band, every breakout attempt getting met with quick mean reversion. 

On the surface, it looks like fatigue. Underneath, it’s something else 

December illiquidity doing what it always does … muting trend and amplifying chop.

Analysts are flagging exactly that: low year-end liquidity could cap Bitcoin’s upside into December, even if the broader cycle remains intact. 

But sideways Bitcoin doesn’t mean a dead market. Historically, these periods of BTC consolidation are where altcoins quietly reposition, especially the assets with real narratives, clean token structures, or strong on-chain traction.

The risk isn’t that Bitcoin breaks.
The risk is that traders confuse rangebound with trendless and miss the rotation.

Investor Signal

Choppy BTC under a defined level, combined with thin December liquidity, is a classic environment for selective alt outperformance. 

Treat Bitcoin’s range as the volatility anchor and use it to frame measured exposure in high-conviction alts rather than chasing every intraday fake-out.

From Our Partners

A former hedge fund manager is now sharing his "Skim Codes" with regular people.

They're not stocks. They're not crypto. They're 18-character codes designed to profit from recent market conditions.

All you have to do is punch them into an ordinary brokerage account.

84% of these codes have given people the chance to generate cash payouts so far… and his next code is going out any day now.

Click here to see the full breakdown

Wall Street spent the day in neutral … indexes barely moving, futures flat, and everyone staring down the next batch of economic data and the Fed’s rate decision. 

Jobless claims, unemployment estimates, and the Fed funds path are all pulling in slightly different directions, and traders know the next surprise probably won’t be about direction, but about timing.

Fed funds futures now imply roughly a 90% chance of a 25 bps cut, up sharply from last month. 

That’s the quiet story in the background: the market has already moved on from if to when and how fast. 

Equities are holding their line. Bond markets are cautious. Risk is waiting.

Crypto lives downstream of that liquidity curve.
A confirmed cut with a “we’re not done” tone is one regime.
A cut paired with stress in labor or inflation is another.

The tape looks calm, but positioning is not.

Investor Signal

When price action goes flat while rate expectations keep shifting, the next leg isn’t built on headlines … it’s built on liquidity assumptions. 

Crypto allocators should be thinking in scenarios: how does your positioning hold up if the first move after the Fed is the wrong one?

BlackRock just laid out its view of the next phase of this market, and the message is blunt:

…AI isn’t a theme. It’s the center of gravity.

The firm expects AI to keep dominating returns into 2026, powered by massive capex from cash-rich companies and sustained investor demand. 

But they’re not sugar-coating it, hedge funds are running near-record leverage, and crowding around AI names is creating the setup for sharp, policy- or data-driven reversals.

So how does this hit crypto?

BlackRock is already tilting into energy and infrastructure they see as AI beneficiaries. 

That’s a tell: the smarter conversation is moving from “which AI stock?” to “who owns the rails that AI has to run on?”

Investor Signal

If AI remains the macro center of gravity, then crypto projects tied to data, compute, infra, and tokenized rails sit closest to that capital flow. 

This cycle will likely reward assets that either serve AI’s needs … or help markets price AI risk more efficiently.

From Our Partners

Why choose between growth or income when you can have both?

Our new report reveals 10 “Double Engine” stocks — companies built for rising dividends and breakout price gains.

Each has the scale, cash flow, and catalysts to outperform as markets rotate after the Fed’s pivot.

These are portfolio workhorses — reliable payouts today, compounding gains tomorrow.

Access the Top 10 Best Stocks to Own in 2026 — free for a limited time >>

A quiet but major shift is underway in U.S. market structure.

The CFTC is green-lighting a new form of regulated spot crypto trading, with exchanges like Bitnomial preparing to launch platforms that sit under commodities oversight rather than securities rules.

This is more than another venue. It’s a third rail between

A CFTC-supervised spot market gives institutional players something they’ve been asking for: 

A way to access leveraged spot exposure to BTC and other assets on federally regulated rails, without wading into the SEC’s turf war over what is or isn’t a security.

It also raises strategic questions:

If price discovery migrates toward these CFTC venues, ETF markets, and CME products, the influence of offshore liquidity pools could slowly erode … or at least be balanced by regulated depth that large allocators are more comfortable touching.

Investor Signal

Watch how volumes and open interest evolve on CFTC-aligned spot platforms. 

If institutional flow starts clustering there, we’ll be looking at a new “core” for U.S. crypto price discovery … and a very different conversation about which venues actually matter.

Ethereum isn’t just shipping upgrades, it’s re-architecting its future bandwidth.

The Fusaka upgrade, now live, is the latest step in that process. 

Its core focus is on expanding Ethereum’s data capacity and making it easier for rollups and scaling solutions to breathe. 

Features like PeerDAS (data availability sampling) reduce validator bandwidth requirements dramatically, lowering the cost of participating in the network and setting the stage for cheaper blockspace.

But Fusaka is framed as a setup, not an endpoint. 

The roadmap already points toward the Glamsterdam upgrade in 2026, which aims to push scalability even further and refine how Ethereum handles data and execution across layers.

For traders, it can read like technical noise.
For builders and long-term allocators, it’s signal:

Ethereum’s price may or may not react immediately, but the surface isn’t where the real change is happening. 

The important shift is that ETH continues to position itself as programmable infrastructure for whatever this next cycle demands—DeFi, RWAs, AI-data coordination, or entirely new categories.

Investor Signal

Upgrades like Fusaka rarely create instant price spikes, but they do reshape the long-term value proposition. 

ETH remains one of the few assets where protocol-level roadmap, developer density, and infra relevance all compound together. That’s the kind of asset that benefits most when markets eventually shift from hype back to fundamentals.

Two of our top analysts have done the impossible — they’ve consistently spotted memecoins before they exploded.

I’m talking gains like 8,200%... 4,915%... and 3,110%, all triggered by a proven system that’s delivered 20+ big wins.

Now they’ve uncovered a brand-new memecoin showing the same explosive signals — and it could be next.

That’s why we’re revealing the #1 Memecoin to Own Right Now (time-sensitive).

[See the pick before the next breakout begins →]

© 2025 Boardwalk Flock LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2382 Camino Vida Roble, Suite I Carlsbad, CA 92011, United States. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Readers acknowledge that the authors are not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical, or professional advice. The reader agrees that under no circumstances Boardwalk Flock, LLC is responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of the use of the information contained within this, including, but not limited to, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. Results may not be typical and may vary from person to person. Making money trading digital currencies takes time and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk.

Prediction markets just crossed an important psychological line:

They’re moving from niche degen playground to mainstream financial signal.

Kalshi has struck an exclusive multi-year deal with CNBC to pipe real-time prediction market data into the network’s coverage … on TV, digital, and subscription products. 

Instead of just quoting surveys or talking heads, CNBC will be able to show viewers live odds on economic, political, and market events, sourced directly from people with money on the line.

This matters for crypto on two levels:

Either way, the idea of “trading the future” is stepping into the spotlight.

Investor Signal

Prediction markets are evolving into a recognized information primitive for markets. 

On-chain platforms that can offer deeper liquidity, better UX, and credible regulatory strategies stand to benefit from this mainstreaming of prediction as an asset class.

Tonight’s tape sends a consistent message:

This isn’t the phase of the cycle where everything rips in unison.

It’s the phase where structures, rails, and regimes get built out in the background while headlines obsess over whether Bitcoin is at 92K or 96K.

Investor Signal

The throughline is simple: infrastructure, regulation, and macro liquidity are all being wired for the next leg. 

The investors who win this phase are the ones who position into structure … strong assets, real roadmaps, credible rails … so that when volatility returns, they’re not scrambling to catch it. 

They’re already in the right places, with the right size, on the right rails.