Bitcoin retreats from session highs, sliding under $88,000 alongside weaker Nasdaq futures.

Bitcoin surrendered gains made during Asian trading hours, falling below $88,000 and dragging major altcoins lower as broader market sentiment weakened.

The largest cryptocurrency briefly climbed above $90,000 before reversing, CoinDesk data shows, halting early recovery attempts across digital assets. Tokens including XRP, ether, solana and dogecoin also retreated from session highs. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) slid back to around 2,726, close to its level in early Asia, after earlier advancing to 2,789.

The pullback coincided with weakness in equity index futures. At the time of writing, Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 0.5%, pointing to a cautious start to U.S. trading. Bitcoin typically shows a strong positive correlation with the tech-heavy index, a relationship that tends to intensify during equity market downturns, according to Wintermute.

The decline also led traders to scale back leveraged positions. Coinglass data shows cumulative open interest across bitcoin futures slipped to roughly 533,000 BTC from about 540,000 BTC earlier in the day, after climbing from 524,000 BTC as prices moved toward $90,000.

Recent trends indicate bitcoin has underperformed during U.S. trading hours, according to Laser Digital. Analysts at the firm highlighted that both BTC and ETH fell more than 3% during U.S. hours last week, offset by strength in Asia, a pattern they attributed largely to year-end tax-loss harvesting. Crypto has been among the weaker-performing global asset classes this year, they added.

Even so, some analysts remain positive on bitcoin’s longer-term outlook. John Glover, chief investment officer at crypto lender Ledn and an Elliott Wave specialist, said the chart structure continues to point to higher prices over time, despite near-term uncertainty. He expects bitcoin to trade sideways to slightly lower in the weeks or months ahead and plans to add long exposure in the $71,000 to $84,000 range.