Quick overview

The cryptocurrency market enters December with cautious optimism as Bitcoin BTC/USD maintains support above $91,000 despite recent volatility, while multiple valuation models suggest Ethereum ETH/USD remains significantly undervalued at current prices. Corporate Bitcoin strategies and institutional adoption continue to shape market sentiment as traders await the Federal Reserve’s anticipated rate cut decision.

Crypto Market Developments

The larger crypto market is going through a lot of changes in institutions and is under a lot of regulatory scrutiny. After the ratings agency S&P Global gave USDt a “weak” rating, the lowest on its scale, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino fired back against the criticism. Ardoino said that in the third quarter of 2025, Tether Group had about $215 billion in assets and $184.5 billion in stablecoin liabilities. They also had an extra $7 billion in equity and $23 billion in retained earnings.

Nasdaq is putting a lot of effort into getting its plan to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange approved. This is a big step forward for integrating traditional finance. Matt Savarese, who is in charge of Nasdaq’s digital assets strategy, said that the exchange wants to move as rapidly as possible on the project and is working closely with the SEC to answer queries and comments from the public.

Phong Le, the CEO of Strategy, said that his company would only think about selling its Bitcoin holdings if the stock price fell below net asset value and the capital markets became inaccessible. Le made it clear that this action was not a change in policy, but rather to protect “Bitcoin yield per share.” He said he didn’t want Strategy to be recognized as the firm that sells Bitcoin. Strategy’s strategy is based on getting more money when shares are worth more than their net asset value and spending that money to buy additional Bitcoin, which increases the number of BTC held per share.

Bitcoin Holds $91,000 as December Begins

BTC/USD

As December begins, Bitcoin is trading close to $91,000. It has strong support in the $90,000 range, even though it has pulled down from its recent high of about $106,000 hit in mid-December. The top cryptocurrency is facing a number of problems, such as cautious derivatives attitude and stalled exchange-traded fund flows that have slowed down momentum even though the economy is getting better.

Market data shows that demand for Bitcoin put options was far higher than demand for call options on Thursday and Friday. This means that traders were very unsure about what to do. Bitcoin monthly futures were only 4% more expensive than spot markets, which is significantly below the neutral range of 5% to 10%. This shows that there isn’t much interest in leveraged long positions. This pause comes after Bitcoin dropped 18% in value over the past 30 days, and traders are closely monitoring to see if the asset will stay above the important $90,000 support level.

The week ending November 28 saw only $70 million in net assets flow into Bitcoin ETFs, showing that institutional demand was modest. Also, none of the big companies who own Bitcoin increased their holdings over the course of two weeks. On November 17, Strategy bought Bitcoin for the last time. SpaceX then shifted 1,163 BTC to new addresses, which led to rumors about a possible sale, although no official word has been given about the transfer.

Even while there is some caution in the short term, things may be getting better for Bitcoin bulls. According to CME Group bond futures data, traders now think there is an 87% chance that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates on December 10. This is up from 71% the week before. Expectations for more expansionary monetary policy have grown because of signs of a weak job market, such as the number of jobless claims rising to 1.96 million in the week ending November 15. Analysts say that the longer Bitcoin stays above $90,000, the more confident bulls may get, especially if ETF inflows start up again and the central bank gives more liquidity assistance.

Is Ethereum Grossly Undervalued?

ETH/USD

Recent market data show that Ethereum is trading between $3,000 and $3,027. Nine out of twelve regularly used valuation models say that the second-largest cryptocurrency is very undervalued. Ki Young Ju, the CEO of the crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant, conducted an analysis that used all twelve models to come up with a “fair value” for ETH. This value is about $4,836, which is a possible increase of more than 58% from where it is now.

The App Capital valuation model says that ETH is worth $4,918. This model takes into consideration all on-chain assets, including as stablecoins, ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, real-world tokenized assets, and bridged assets. Applying Metcalfe’s Law, which says that network value grows in proportion to the square of active users, gives an ETH price of $9,484, which means the asset is more than 211% undervalued. The Layer-2 framework, which takes into account the entire value locked across Ethereum’s scaling network ecosystem, shows that the fair value is $4,633, which means that the price is almost 52% too low.

But not all models show a good picture. ETHval’s methodology says that the Revenue Yield valuation model is the most credible. It says that ETH is truly worth more than 57% more than it is now, when prices are above $3,000. This model figures out the value of ETH by dividing the yearly network revenue by the staking yield, which gives a price target of about $1,296. The difference shows that there is still a lot of disagreement in the Ethereum community about the best ways to value the world’s first smart contract platform. Many people think that traditional models don’t fully capture the value of new digital assets and decentralized blockchain networks.

The income Yield model’s gloomy prediction is based on Ethereum’s falling fee income as network fees hit record lows because of competition from other layer-1 blockchains and the move of transaction volume to layer-2 scaling solutions. Ethereum concluded December 2024 at $3,359.51, down from a monthly high of $4,015.78 earlier in the month. This shows that the market is still interested in the protocol, even though it is having to change its economic model in a more competitive environment.