The broader crypto market fell on Tuesday with bitcoin down 1% since midnight UTC at $80,800 and ether (ETH) down 2% at $2,290.
US stock futures also fell after US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was “on massive life support”, leading to a rise in the price of Brent crude oil to $107 per barrel and a 0.4% rise in the US dollar index (DXY).
Bitcoin, however, remains above Bitmine (BMNR) Chairman Tom Lee’s line at $76,000, which he says would confirm the end of a bull market if bitcoin can hold above that level at the end of the month.
The altcoin market is mixed, with the majority of tokens underperforming the two largest cryptocurrencies, while a small corner of the market, notably curve (CRV) and toncoin (TON), have resisted the bearish price action with upward movements of between 5% and 10% over the last 24 hours.
Positioning of derivative products
- Market-wide notional open interest (OI) in crypto futures reached $125 billion, even as volumes fell 6% to $174 million. These moves suggest a reduction in short-term speculation and gradual positioning by traders.
- ZEC’s OI collapsed more than 10% to 1.90 million tokens from last week’s 4.5-month high of 2.48 million tokens. At the same time, the price of the token fell from $642 to $550. This combination suggests the unwinding of bullish bets rather than new capital flows deployed for short or bearish positions.
- Other major declines in OI included SUI, CORE, and HBAR. At the same time, open interest in Canton’s CC token surged over 10%, with positive funding rates and positive cumulative volume delta adjusted for 24-hour OI, signaling stronger buyer dominance.
- ETH and XMR are other notable OI gainers, although their CVDs are negative, a sign that sellers are driving price action with market orders rather than passive limit orders.
- The relentless decline in Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, has halted this month, stabilizing at nearly 40%. But there is no sign of a further recovery, indicating continued calm in the market, a favorable environment for a new upward trend in prices.
- Wall Street’s volatility gauge, the VIX, which measures the 30-day implied volatility of the S&P 500 index, jumped more than 10% this week to nearly 19 points. Although still below recent highs above 30, the slight recovery is worth paying attention to.
- On Deribit, the 24-hour volume leaderboard featured BTC calls at strike prices of $80,000, $82,000, and $84,000. Calls are bets on a rise in the price of Bitcoin. It also included puts, or bets on a decline, at strike prices of $65,000 and $74,000.
Symbolic discussion
- All CoinDesk benchmarks have been in the red since midnight UTC, with the DeFi Select Index (DFX) leading the losses with a change of 2.7%, followed by the CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) down 2.3%.
- JUP, MON and SEI were among the worst performing altcoins of the day, falling between 5.6% and 6.3% due to a continued lack of liquidity.
- is one of the best performing altcoins, adding 4.1% to mark a three-day winning streak.
- The CRO rally can be attributed to a governance proposal that, if adopted, would change the tokenomics of the project by replacing inflation-based staking rewards with a system in which returns are entirely funded by the protocol’s actual revenue.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 50/100, the highest level since late March as sentiment across the sector shows signs of improvement.
