Bitcoin to USD Market Outlook: Spot ETF Capital Outflows and RMB Appreciation Create a Contrast

Over the past week, the market trend of Bitcoin exchanging for US dollars has shown subtle changes. On one hand, spot ETF funds have continued to outflow for five consecutive days; on the other hand, offshore RMB has broken through the 7.0 threshold for the first time. This contrasting phenomenon hints at deeper market signals. Currently, Bitcoin’s price fluctuates around $87.87K (down 2.10% in 24 hours), and the overall market structure is quietly adjusting.

The Complex Relationship Between RMB Appreciation and Bitcoin Exchange Demand

Offshore RMB against the US dollar recently broke through the 7.00 mark for the first time since 2024, while onshore RMB hit a new high in over a year, with the appreciation reaching the largest since late August 2025. Market analysts believe that a combination of factors—such as the softening of the US dollar index, China’s economic resilience, and year-end foreign exchange settlement demands—have jointly driven the RMB’s strength.

The People’s Bank of China officially announced at a press conference that it will support provinces and cities along the Western Land-Sea New Corridor to deeply participate in the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge project, further promoting the use of central bank digital currencies in cross-border payments. This policy signal indicates that, in the process of RMB internationalization, the boundary between digital assets and traditional foreign exchange exchange is becoming blurred. For trading pairs like Bitcoin to USD, policy changes may bring about new liquidity patterns.

Adjustment of Spot Fund Capital Structure: Weakening of Bitcoin USD Buying Power

Data shows that on December 24, Eastern Time, the total daily outflow of funds from Bitcoin spot ETFs reached $175 million, marking the fifth consecutive day of outflows. Among them, BlackRock’s IBIT product had a net outflow of $91.37 million, the largest outflow of the day; Grayscale’s GBTC product net outflow was $24.62 million.

From this capital performance, institutional investors’ demand for Bitcoin-to-USD trading pairs is decreasing. As of the current data, the total assets of spot funds in the market amount to $113.8 billion, accounting for 6.51% of Bitcoin’s market cap. Although cumulative net inflows have reached $56.9 billion, recent outflows indicate a shift in market sentiment.

Increasing Divergence in Crypto Narratives: Wide Disparities in Asset Class USD Exchange Performance

According to CoinGecko’s 2025 annual statistics, the crypto market has shown extreme divergence. The Real-World Assets (RWA) sector led with an average annual increase of 185.76%, mainly driven by projects like Keeta Network (+1794.9%). Layer 1 blockchains followed closely, with an 80.31% annual increase, with ZCash and Monero surging 691.3% and 143.6%, respectively. The current USD exchange price for ZCash is $359.00 (up 3.21% in 24 hours).

In stark contrast, AI-related tokens declined by 50.18% in 2025, Meme tokens fell 31.61%, and DeFi and DEX sectors dropped 34.79% and 55.53%, respectively. Layer 2 solutions recorded a second consecutive year of -40.63% decline. This extreme divergence indicates that the exchange rate pressures when converting different assets to USD vary greatly.

Mining Network Stable Operation and Slight Difficulty Adjustment Upward

Bitcoin mining difficulty experienced a routine adjustment at block height 929,376, increasing by 0.04% to a new level of 148.26T. The network’s average hash rate over the past seven days remains high at around 1.08ZH/s, maintaining relative stability. This gentle difficulty increase typically reflects miners’ resilience in maintaining costs even as Bitcoin’s USD price declines.

DeFi Innovation and Traditional Finance Penetration: Maple Finance Sets New Single Loan Record

Austin Barack, founder of Relayer Capital, announced that DeFi lending platform Maple Finance issued its largest single loan in history yesterday—$500 million. Simultaneously, the platform’s total outstanding loans also hit a new high. This milestone demonstrates that, even amid pressure on Bitcoin’s USD exchange rate, the on-chain lending market continues to expand its capital capacity.

Institutional Holdings Dynamics: Bitcoin Accumulation Plans and Ethereum Positioning

Metaplanet’s board officially approved an ambitious Bitcoin accumulation plan to hold 210,000 BTC by the end of 2027, further expanding the issuance of Class A and B shares, and introducing floating interest rates and quarterly dividend mechanisms. This reflects a long-term capital optimistic attitude toward Bitcoin-to-USD trading pairs.

Meanwhile, BlackRock recently deposited nearly $230 million worth of digital assets into Coinbase Prime, including 2,292 BTC (about $199.8 million) and 9,976 ETH ($29.23 million). This large deposit is generally interpreted as preparation for large-scale institutional trading, indicating that liquidity demand for mainstream trading pairs like Bitcoin-to-USD is still accumulating.

On-chain monitoring data also shows that a transaction address suspected to belong to Multicoin Capital transferred $30 million USDC stablecoins to the Worldcoin team wallet a day ago, later receiving 60 million WLD tokens (worth about $2.9 million at current $0.47 USD price). This off-market large transaction reflects institutional adjustments in large-scale allocations between stablecoins and specific tokens for USD exchange.

Additionally, Trend Research has accumulated a total of 645,000 ETH since early November, valued at about $2.1 billion at the current $2,900 price, making it the third-largest ETH holding after Bitmine and SharpLink. The average cost basis is $3,299.43, with an unrealized loss of $242 million. If the plan to “buy another $1 billion” is implemented, it will rank second among ETH holdings.

2026 Crypto Ecosystem Forecast: New Roles for Bitcoin and Stablecoins

Jay Yu, Head of Research and Investment at Pantera Capital, released 12 major predictions for the 2026 crypto industry, offering forward-looking insights for market participants. Among these, the expansion of stablecoin applications in international payments is a key focus. It is expected that more fintech companies (such as Stripe, Brex) will use stablecoins for international transactions, and related stablecoin blockchains (like Tempo) may become primary gateways for fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat exchanges.

Tokenized gold is predicted to become a popular asset for inflation hedging and dollar risk avoidance; AI will gradually become the interface layer of the crypto space. Although LLM-driven trading AI remains experimental, AI-assisted trading and analysis are already trending toward widespread adoption. The market is forecasted to bifurcate into “financial” and “cultural” directions; Agentic Commerce based on the x402 payment framework may surpass current DEX patterns.

In on-chain trading scenarios, Hyperliquid is expected to continue leading the perpetual contract DEX sector, with stablecoins as core assets; Prop AMM models will expand across multiple chains, with Solana ecosystem potentially accounting for over 50%. Additionally, trends such as unified privacy development experiences, secondary integration of DATs (expected to reduce to 2-3 major players), discussions on Bitcoin’s quantum security, and the blurring of governance tokens and equity boundaries are also noteworthy.

Market Outlook: The Long-term Pattern of Bitcoin-to-USD Exchange Remains Uncertain

Factors such as macro policy promotion of central bank digital currencies, Russia’s upcoming launch of a compliant crypto trading platform in 2026, and evolving international settlement demands amid RMB appreciation will jointly influence the future liquidity and price trends of Bitcoin-to-USD, the core trading pair. In the short term, the outflow of funds from spot ETFs and the continuous accumulation of large institutional holdings present an interesting contrast. In the long run, Bitcoin’s role as an asset allocation tool and cross-border value storage continues to deepen.