Bitcoin’s limping toward the end of the year, weighed down by a kind of fatigue we haven’t seen since 2018. It’s not that prices are crashing in some dramatic way. They just can’t seem to get any real traction. Every time Bitcoin tries to bounce, the move fizzles out. No panic. Just a slow, stubborn loss of energy.

What’s changed this quarter isn’t a flood of selling it’s the total lack of excitement from buyers. Each little rally gets sold almost immediately. New money? Nowhere to be found. The trading volume’s dried up, swings are smaller, and any sign of life fades much faster than it did a few months ago. You can feel it: this is a tired market, not a broken one.

The derivatives market tells the same story. Open interest has dropped from the highs, funding rates are flat, and traders aren’t keen to pile on risky bets. Most people are just playing defense or stepping back, waiting for something clear to act on. That’s pretty typical after a long stretch of choppy trading.

On top of all that, the big-picture stuff isn’t helping. Sticky inflation, shifting interest rate bets, and a rebound in old-school safe havens are pulling attention away from crypto. Bitcoin used to be the poster child for macro hedges, but right now, it’s just another risk asset waiting for a reason to matter again.

Still, if you look back, some of Bitcoin’s best runs started after stretches like this when nobody cared anymore. So if this quarter ends as weak as it looks, maybe it’s not a failure. Maybe it’s just a reset. The market isn’t scared. It’s just tired, waiting for something to shake it awake.