In what has become an all-too-familiar action at the start of the US trading day, the crypto sector gave up even the tiniest hint of an overnight rally.
As America slept on Friday, Bitcoin soared above $89,000 at one point As soon as US stocks opened for trading after the Christmas holidays, they fell sharply below $87,000.
Again very familiar to crypto bulls, the poor price action came as the metals continued to rise, with gold, silver, copper and platinum all setting new record highs on Friday.
Already attracting capital that might otherwise be moving into Bitcoin as part of a global devaluation trade, the metals are also benefiting today from rising geopolitical tensions after the US attacked Islamic State bases in Nigeria on Christmas Day and stepped up pressure against Venezuela by blocking sanctioned oil tankers.
Palladium and platinum led the metals rise by more than 10%, while silver and copper gained 5% each. Gold is ahead 1.5% at $4,573 an ounce.
The Nasdaq, S&P 500 and DJIA were all trading roughly flat in morning action.
Bitcoin fell 1.6% in the last 24 hours; ether It was like that below. There was a discount of more than 4% and 3% sank, causing damage to the rest of the area.
Crypto stocks were also in the red, with Coinbase (COIN), which Clear Street’s Owen Lau named one of the three most promising fintech ideas in 2026, outperforming with a decline of just 2%. Gemini (GEMI) was down 6%, Bullish (BLSH) was down 3.8% and Galaxy Digital (GLXY) was down 3.5%.
Bitcoin miners were particularly hard hit in the early trading session after Christmas – even those that have pivoted business models from BTC mining to AI infrastructure. IREN (IREN), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Terawolf (WULF) and Marathon Digital (MARA) were among those falling 5% or more. Hut 8 (HUT), which excelled on its AI plans last week, led the losers list on Friday with a 7.5% decline.