Gate Research Institute: BTC returns above 90,000 USD ｜ Market structure enters long positions rotation phase

Encryption Asset Panorama

BTC (+3.24% | Current Price 90,483.1 USDT)

BTC strongly broke through the slight fluctuations in the $87,000-$88,000 range on the morning of the 27th, quickly rising to over $90,000, with an increase of more than 3%. At the same time, the MA5 turned sharply upward and crossed the MA10 and MA30; the MA10 also followed suit, forming a short-term bullish arrangement; the MA30 began to slowly turn upward, confirming a strengthening trend. Currently, all three lines show a bullish divergence structure, with the MA30 ≈ $88,000 forming a key support level for the short to medium term. If it falls below this level, the short-term upward trend will end; however, it is expected that with the repair of market sentiment, BTC will have a higher probability of challenging above $92,000.

ETH (+3.03% | Current Price 3,046.78 USDT)

ETH rose in the morning of the 27th along with BTC, breaking through the $3,000 threshold, reaching a high of $3,050, with an increase of over 3%. MA5, MA10, and MA30 are all in a bullish arrangement, with MA30 ≈ $2,960 providing mid-term support for steady upward movement. Overall, ETH follows the trend of BTC; as market sentiment improves, if BTC can maintain above $90,000, ETH is expected to target the $3,100-$3,150 range; if BTC pulls back, ETH may retest the support at the $3,000 level, and if it falls below $2,960, the short-term trend will turn into a weak oscillation.

GT (+6.23% | Current Price 10.74 USDT)

GT has been trading sideways around $10 for nearly three days, during which MA5 and MA10 have crossed multiple times, while MA30 has maintained a slow upward trend, indicating that market positions are gradually stabilizing and volatility is compressing. Since early morning, the price of GT has quickly surged from around $10.20, peaking at $10.87, with an increase of over 6%. The K-line closely follows the MA5, and MA5 and MA10 are showing a steep rise, indicating that buying is dominating the rhythm. As market risk appetite warms up, the prices of BTC and ETH are recovering, and funds are also beginning to rotate into platform tokens and exchange ecosystem sectors.

Daily Price Change Tokens

In the past 24 hours, market sentiment has clearly improved, with the Fear and Greed Index rising to 22. Although it is still in the “extreme fear” range, it has doubled compared to last week's 11, indicating a gradual recovery in risk appetite, with some funds beginning to reposition. The overall trend shows a broad-based increase, with almost all major cryptocurrencies rising. The market structure is entering an upward phase led by BTC, followed by ETH, with platform coins and public chains taking turns. If BTC can hold above 90,000 USD, the liquidity situation is expected to continue to improve, further flowing into second-tier assets and DeFi blue-chip tokens, driving the market expansion.

MERL Merlin (+157.97%, circulating market cap 550 million USD)

According to Gate.io market data, the current price of the MERL token is $0.0552, having increased by over 150% in the last 24 hours. Merlin Chain is a Layer 2 scaling solution designed for Bitcoin, developed by Bitmap Technology, and is set to launch in January 2024. DeFiLlama data shows that Merlin's TVL exceeds $44 million, with a growth of 7.8% in the last 24 hours.

The rise of Merlin comes from the resonance of narrative and funding. Merlin recently underwent a 12-hour mainnet upgrade aimed at enhancing scalability and optimizing ZooKeeper performance for coordinating distributed systems, which will further reduce latency and support more dApp deployments. This is also seen by the community as a short-term price catalyst. In addition, the annualized negative interest rate of MERL's U-based perpetual contracts on major exchanges has reached over 2,000%, with the price remaining strong in the short term due to short-squeeze.

XION XION (+98.6%, Market Cap 30.25 million USD)

According to Gate market data, the current price of the XION token is $0.067, with a 100% increase in the last 24 hours. XION is a Layer 1 blockchain developed by the Burnt team, based on the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint PoS consensus, focusing on “chain abstraction” and consumer-level Web3 experience, aiming to make blockchain “invisible”—no wallets, seed phrases, or gas fees, allowing direct login with Face ID/credit card, and supporting USDC as the gas token.

The rise of XION is driven by Korean investors. Following its recent listing on local exchanges in South Korea and the KRW trading pair, Korean whales have surged into the speculation around XION, with the XION/KRW trading pair accounting for over 30% of its spot trading volume. However, it is important to note that the strategic supporters and team shares of the XION token will begin to be unlocked in batches starting in December, which may introduce hundreds of millions of dollars in selling pressure into the market circulation over the coming months.

BANANAS31 Banana For Scale (+66.62%, Circulating Market Cap $58.7 Million)

According to Gate's market data, the BANANAS31 token is currently priced at $0.0058, having increased by over 60% in the last 24 hours. BANANAS31 is a Memecoin based on BSC, named/wrapped after the internet meme “Banana for Scale” (people use bananas as a scale for photos). The project aims to combine “the humor of internet culture + blockchain / AI / dApp/token economy.”

The recent surge of BANANAS31 is not a “silent price increase,” but is accompanied by active trading + community/fund inflow. Gate.io market data shows that the trading volume of BANANAS31 reached as high as $475 million in the last 24 hours. Moreover, with the recent recovery of the Meme market on BSC, such deeply accumulated Memes with relatively good meme culture are more likely to be favored by speculators.

Hotspot Interpretation

S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether - USDT rating to “Weak”

S&P Global Ratings released a report in November 2025, downgrading the stability rating of Tether - USDT from the previous “4 (constrained)” to “5 (weak)”, which is the lowest level in this rating system. The main reasons for the downgrade include an increase in the proportion of “high-risk assets” in the USDT reserve portfolio (such as BTC, precious metals, corporate bonds, secured loans, etc.); at the same time, S&P believes that Tether has structural deficiencies in information disclosure, asset isolation, hedging mechanisms, and hedging counter-party risks. The report specifically points out that as of the most recent review, high-risk assets behind USDT accounted for approximately 24% of its reserves, a significant increase from about 17% last year; correspondingly, the proportion of the most ideal and safest assets used to support stablecoins—such as U.S. Treasuries/short-term Treasury bills—has decreased.

The recent downgrade by S&P is not a deliberate pressure on USDT out of thin air, nor does it necessarily mean that USDT is facing real problems. Rather, it reflects a trend based on their recent reassessment of the stablecoin industry concerning “risk + transparency + asset structure + redemption safety.” As the cryptocurrency market experiences volatility and traditional financial institutions increase their attention to stablecoin participants, the stability and transparency of stablecoin asset structures have become key factors in determining credibility, especially as stablecoins serve as a digital dollar alternative or bridge. USDT increasingly allocates reserves to BTC, which is seen as a high-risk and high-volatility asset by traditional industries, contradicting the concept of traditional dollar substitutes or currency equivalents. Tether's CEO has publicly responded, “We take pride in being scorned by the old system.”

ATOM has performed poorly in the long term, and the Cosmos community has proposed a restructuring of the ATOM token economics.

Cosmos is an ecosystem/network characterized by “blockchain interoperability”, “modular chains + customized chains + cross-chain communication”. It enables different blockchains to communicate with each other through the Cosmos SDK and the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC). However, in recent years, both the Cosmos ecosystem and adoption rate, as well as the market price of ATOM, have not met expectations. In response, the Cosmos community is researching and soliciting opinions to prepare for a comprehensive reconstruction of the economic model of ATOM.

The goal of researching the new economic model is to design a token economics model based on fee income, rather than solely relying on inflation + staking. In other words, it aims to link the value of ATOM more closely with the real economic activities and revenue of the Cosmos ecosystem itself (on-chain usage, dApp fees, IBC cross-chain transactions, infrastructure usage, etc.). This is mainly to address the issues faced by the ATOM token in the original token economics.

• Addressing inflation and sell-off pressure: In the past, the issuance and inflation mechanism of ATOM, along with the staking and reward mechanism, may have led to excessive releases + holder sell-offs, weakening long-term value.
• Enhance the value capture capability of ATOM as a base asset or network asset: If the fees generated by the Cosmos ecosystem increase, then ATOM, as the native token, should allow its holders to share in this value.

In addition, ATOM believers also hope to restore the community's trust in Cosmos through this open, transparent, community-driven research and voting process.

Vitalik donated to the privacy communication applications Session and SimpleX Chat, reiterating the importance of privacy protection.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik posted on social media donating 128 ETH to both Session and SimpleX Chat to support their development and advancement in areas such as “privacy communication + decentralization + metadata protection + user permissionless account creation.” Vitalik stated that these two projects are committed to “end-to-end encryption + privacy + decentralization + protection of metadata (such as sender/receiver/time/frequency, etc.) + multi-device support + resistance to Sybil/DoS attacks,” which are crucial for the future of user privacy and the encrypted communication ecosystem.

Session is a decentralized chat application developed by the Australian team Loki Foundation (now renamed to Session Network), operating on a blockchain network. Users can register without a phone number, and messages are relayed through anonymous nodes, making metadata virtually untraceable. SimpleX Chat, on the other hand, adopts a different approach; it does not rely on any fixed servers or user IDs, but instead achieves true decentralized communication through end-to-end ephemeral connections. Both projects are attempting to address the metadata leakage issues that traditional encrypted chat software still cannot avoid—namely, who is talking to whom, when they are talking, and the frequency of communication can still be analyzed and inferred.

However, decentralized communication still does not match traditional social applications in terms of user experience, performance, and scalability. Finding a balance between privacy and convenience will be the biggest technical challenge ahead. But regardless of the outcome, Vitalik's donation undoubtedly sends a signal: outside the noisy market, there are still people in the crypto world who are safeguarding the original ideals - a truly free, uncensored, and privacy-protecting internet. <br> Reference Materials:

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Gate,https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
• CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
• CoinGecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/xion
• DeFiLlama, https://defillama.com/chain/merlin
• Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/tethers-stablecoin-downgraded-weak-sp-assessment-2025-11-26/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• Cosmos Hub Forum, https://forum.cosmos.network/t/atom-tokenomics-research-kickoff/16462?u=mag

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