The overall bearish mood in the crypto market was temporarily halted as BTC, along with most altcoins, exploded by tens of thousands of dollars in minutes.
But it was a sham once again, and the largest digital asset plummeted just as quickly to its starting point.
The graph above shows a clear picture. BTC was rejected at $90,000 on Monday and then fell below $85,500 in the next few hours. It remained below $88,000 for the next 48 hours, but started to rise earlier today.
In just a few minutes, it jumped more than 3 grand to just over $90,000. However, the ensuing retracement was just as quick, sending BTC back to its starting point.
Many altcoins followed suit, immediately increasing in price and being instantly rejected. Unsurprisingly, this led to around $300 million worth of positions being destroyed, with longs and shorts roughly evenly balanced ($140 million vs. $152 million), according to CoinGlass data.
The number of traders liquidated was more than 100,000, but the largest number of positions eliminated was on Binance, with a value of about $4 million.
Popular crypto analyst CryptoJelleNL commented on BTC’s big move and argued that this rejection could cause further problems for the cryptocurrency, outlining that it could fall below $83,000.
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Another accurate tag for Monthly Open – Strictly Rejected.
The $83,000 low doesn’t seem very safe.
The main idea is that $BTC stays on the short-term downside, fixing at the HTF div and then rising for a while. ⌛️ pic.twitter.com/MqFAIZa9dX
— Jelle (@CryptoJelleNL) December 17, 2025
