Asia Morning Briefing: Market Turns Defensive as Bitcoin Loses Its Bid

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Asia Morning Briefing: Market Turns Defensive as Bitcoin Loses Its Bid With CryptoQuant flagging an exhausted demand wave and Polymarket traders clustering around an 85,000 retest, the market is trading without the catalysts that drove last year’s gains. By Sam Reynolds Nov 20, 2025, 2:15 a.m. What to know : Bitcoin's market structure is weakening as demand diminishes, with rallies likely stalling below the 365-day moving average. Short-term Bitcoin holders are realizing losses rapidly, and derivatives markets are in risk-off mode, signaling potential bearish momentum. Bitcoin is trading around $92,000, while Ether is at $3,038, both reflecting a broader defensive market tone. Good Morning, Asia. Here's what's making news in the markets: Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk's Crypto Daybook Americas. Bitcoin is slipping into a weaker market structure as the steady bid that supported prices earlier in the year gives way to diminished demand and defensive positioning. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . In a recent note, CryptoQuant wrote that the cycle’s core demand wave has already passed, with ETF accumulation slowing, Treasury-company buying evaporating, and Strategy’s purchases falling to their lowest levels of the year. This does not imply an imminent collapse, CryptoQuant argues, but it does mean upside is increasingly limited, with rallies likely to stall below the 365-day moving average until a new demand wave emerges. Polymarket traders are positioning around that weakness, assigning the highest probability to a move toward 85,000 and giving almost no weight to upside scenarios. Glassnode adds that short-term holders are realizing losses at their fastest pace since the FTX period, ETF flows remain negative, and derivatives markets have shifted into full risk-off mode, with options traders loading up on puts and implied volatility climbing. Against that backdrop, Glassnode points to the Active Investor cost basis near $88,600 as the market’s next critical test. A sustained move below this level would put recent active investors into losses for the first time this cycle and signal that bearish momentum is taking control. The next support sits at the True Market Mean around $82,000, which Glassnode describes as the point where a mild bearish phase could give way to a bear market structure similar to 2022 and 2023. The coming weeks will show whether buyers can reassert themselves or whether support gives way and the downturn becomes more entrenched. Market Movement BTC: Bitcoin is trading around $92,000 after briefly slipping under $90,000 earlier in the week, leaving the market on edge as it searches for support. ETH: Ether is trading around $3,038, slipping modestly on the day as it continues to track Bitcoin’s broader defensive tone. Gold: Gold is trading near $4,067 after touching an intraday high of $4,132, as risk aversion sweeps through the markets. Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets rose Thursday as a strong Nvidia earnings report boosted chip stocks, lifting the Nikkei 225 by 3.7% Elsewhere in Crypto: Samourai Wallet Co-Founder Bill Hill Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for Unlicensed Money Transmitting ( CoinDesk ) New Hampshire Unveils $100 Million Bitcoin Collateralized Municipal Bond ( Decrypt ) Bullish Swings to Profit in Third Quarter After Adding Options, U.S. Spot Trading ( CoinDesk ) btc ETH bear More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You Nvidia Earnings Beat, Strong Outlook Calm Jittery Markets; Bitcoin Re-Takes $90K By Helene Braun | Edited by Stephen Alpher 4 hours ago "Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. What to know : Nvidia posted strong third quarter earnings alongside better than expected fourth quarter guidance. For the moment, the news has calmed jittery markets, with bitcoin climbing back over $90,000 from the day's low near $88,000. AI-linked crypto tokens surged as Nvidia reinforced its role at the core of the artificial intelligence boom. 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