Voting with your feet: Investors' choices and predictions for Christmas 2025 miss the mark

As the year-end bells of 2025 ring, the cryptocurrency market faces an awkward moment. Investors are voting with their feet—their choices clearly declare what is worth期待ing and what is just outdated narrative. In stark contrast to the S&P 500 reaching new highs at year-end, Bitcoin performed modestly during Christmas, and it seems there are not many surprises in Santa’s gift bag for virtual currency investors.

Forecast Misses: Why Industry Leaders’ Optimistic Fantasies Fell Short

As 2025 comes to a close, Bitcoin is trading at around $89,940 (latest data as of January 22, 2026), far from many industry leaders’ optimistic predictions at the beginning of the year.

Looking back from late 2024 to early 2025, industry heavyweights like Tim Draper, PlanB, Tom Lee, Robert Kiyosaki, Cathie Wood, Bernstein, and Geoff Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, all predicted Bitcoin would surpass $150,000 by the end of 2025. Their logic seemed impeccable: SEC reforms, Fed rate cuts, ongoing institutional inflows, and traditional forecasting frameworks like the S2F (Stock-to-Flow) model all pointed in one direction—cryptocurrencies would迎來 another bull market.

However, reality played a “slap in the face” scene. Although Bitcoin surged to a record high of $126,080 in October 2025, it quickly retreated afterward. The entire performance of 2025 declined over 15% compared to the beginning of the year—an unusual scenario in the second year after halving without the anticipated bull run.

Industry leaders generally underestimated a key factor: the explosive growth of AI technology. When NVIDIA and other AI infrastructure-related stocks can deliver annual returns of 50%-100%, the appeal of Bitcoin as a “high-risk tech asset” diminishes significantly. Capital hasn’t disappeared; it has just shifted its flow.

Market Voting with Feet: Capital Moving from Virtual Currencies to Physical Computing Power

This is the most direct expression of investors voting with their feet.

On Christmas Eve, spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw hundreds of millions of dollars in outflows in just one day. Meanwhile, an interesting phenomenon emerged: stocks related to mining (such as IREN, Cipher, BitMine, and other companies transitioning to AI computing power) rose against the trend at year-end. This is not a coincidence but a collective rational choice of the market.

Investors are sending a clear signal: compared to pure token investments, they prefer “shovel stocks”—companies providing computing power and infrastructure that generate tangible cash flow. In other words, the market is beginning to distinguish between “narrative-driven speculation” and “fundamentals-driven investment.”

Bitcoin closed at $87,800 on Christmas Day, down 12% from $99,000 on Christmas 2024. This figure itself is a vote from investors: we no longer believe in stories of “festive magic” and “linear wealth explosion.”

Why Did Traditional Forecast Models Fail?

Most forecasting models (including the popular S2F model, gold market cap ratio, etc.) are based on one assumption: Bitcoin is the only reservoir of capital. When liquidity is abundant and regulation is friendly, capital flows into cryptocurrencies.

The reality of 2025 overturned this assumption. AI has become the new reservoir. Wall Street’s old maps indeed cannot find new continents. More importantly, macroeconomic stagflationary pressures are also at play—although the Fed is cutting rates, economic growth remains sluggish, putting overall pressure on risk assets. Institutional investors are not avoiding crypto assets; they are rebalancing risk and return.

This Christmas also marks a watershed for the crypto market. Over the past decade, Bitcoin has shown upward momentum around Christmas in eight years (with gains between 0.33% and 10.86%), but 2025 broke this pattern. It’s not a crash but a high-level consolidation—no panic selling, only calm adjustments by institutions.

The End of the Narrative Era, the Beginning of the Fundamentals Era

The deeper meaning of this shift is worth pondering. The Christmas of 2025 did not bring investors a surprising red envelope but a calm health check report—cryptocurrencies are maturing.

First, the law of diminishing returns has begun to take effect. Bitcoin is no longer an asset that can casually multiply tenfold. It is evolving into a “digital gold” linked to macroeconomics, with reduced volatility and correspondingly lower excess returns.

Second, the listing of spot ETFs has brought in institutional capital but also anchored Bitcoin’s price to Wall Street’s trading logic. During Christmas, US stock trading was light, and Bitcoin also lost the momentum of independent行情. This is a double-edged sword: while liquidity and recognition increase, pricing power shifts to traditional finance.

Furthermore, investors are beginning to distinguish between “builders” and “hoarders.” The real winners in 2025 are not passive holders but those involved in industry upgrades. The soaring stock prices of companies like BitMine and IREN confirm this—what the market craves is “real computing power” rather than “pure hash values.”

New Opportunities and Challenges in 2026

Looking ahead to 2026, investors need to abandon the linear wealth explosion fantasies of models like S2F. The market is rewarding those who can deeply integrate blockchain technology with AI and energy industries. Bitcoin remains king, but its pace has become more steady—some investors even find it slow.

Currently, Bitcoin hovers around $89,940 (data as of January 22, 2026), down about 29% from its all-time high. This is not a sign of doom but an opportunity for all investors to reflect. Past holiday histories tell us that festivals have no magic; fundamentals and capital flows are the decisive forces.

For those preparing to strike gold in 2026, instead of fixating on the “magic” of Christmas or other festivals, it’s better to focus on real industry trends—projects that can integrate computing power, energy, and blockchain technology are becoming the true winners of the market’s vote with their feet.