2025’s Big Idea

December concluded with one of Bitcoin’s most lackluster financial performances compared to the traditional 4 year cycle narrative which would have Bitcoin’s relative price appreciate in the last quarter of 2025 significantly.

While Bitcoin did the opposite of expectations, sentiment and on-chain metrics show no strong indication of Bitcoin value moving in any direction, while underlying adoption seems to be still be stable.

Key Metrics

Exchange Reserves readjusts again: 2,752,345

Last month’s exchange reserves came in at 2,395,985 showing a decrease of over 107,000 BTC or ~$11.7B equivalent of BTC pulled off of exchanges.

It seems as though there’s been another exchange reserve calculation adjustment upward. This is the 3rd this year. This metric’s inconsistency reduces the insight it provides. This will be de-prioritized moving forward.

December rose slightly from November’s record low for Copper / Gold Ratio

December saw another slight uptick in the Copper/ Gold ratio from November’s uptick. Gold is still broke a new All Time High over $4,500 per oz. While gold has declined slightly to $4,300 per oz, copper future’s made a 7% increase

The Copper/Gold ratio is a key macro indicator for industrial manufacturing optimism and growth as copper is a heavily used industrial commodity. When the Copper/Gold ratio is low, it means Gold price is increasing relative to gold, indicating investors are risk off and saving more. When copper price increases relative to gold, it signals additional manufacturing, industrial demand, and growth optimism.

Bitcoin Realized Price declines to: $56,148

December’s end of month realized price declined ~$300 from Novembers’s realized price of $56,473. This decline in realized price usually reflects capitulation, distribution at a loss, or a shift of coins to lower-cost holders.

Bitcoin realized price is the average price that each coin last moved on the network. This value tends to set the floor and mirrors the 200wma, but indicates Bitcoin holders willingness to move and spend Bitcoin.

Bitcoin realized price has also signaled previous peaks when the realized price reaches peak price of previous cycle. For this cycle, realized price would need to reach ~$69k to signal the peak of the last cycle. However, with the structural institutional buying patterns we’re seeing, no single indicator should be used to determine tops of bottoms.

December Global Liquidity ticks upward again

Global Liquidity has ticked up to a little over 115T from Novembers’s ~$114T. As global liquidity increases, stemming from central banks dropping interest rates (like the most recent 25bps cut by the FED in December), asset prices tend to move respectively.

This below graph shows Global Liquidity shifted 10 weeks with a Bitcoin correlation of >0.9.

Bitcoin Relative Strength Index (RSI) drops another 2 points

December RSI is ending at 51 from 63 with a decrease of ~2 points. The overall sentiment on Bitcoin, relative to gold, silver, and stocks for this year has been relatively mediocre compared to the

Network Hashrate stays sideways, but still above 1 ZH

In December, the network moved sideways in the 1.05 ZH range. Miners are balancing profitability with future growth expectations, and sideways hash rate for this month shows no clear direction with miners.

Network hashrate is the cumulative compute power that is powering the Bitcoin network ensuring secure transactions and preventing any malicious actors from adversely affecting the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin ETFs saw continued net outflows for December.

This modest outflow corresponds with the sideways December price action. Investors are taking a risk-off stance and collecting cash going into the holidays & new year.

Public Company Bitcoin Holdings, December ending at 1,093,641 BTC.

Public companies stacked an additional 32,000 Bitcoin in the last month from 1,061,697 BTC ending in November. This month, the floor to enter the top 100 Public company holders stayed still at only 132 Bitcoin today. Accumulation within the public companies was more concentrated among the larger Bitcoin holders.

From last month: “This entry threshold was only 29 Bitcoin end of July, showing the aggressive accumulation public companies are making toward Bitcoin treasuries.”

That’s all for now.

If there are additional metrics that you want to see or think are appropriate to include, please let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Lucas Bazemore