Bitcoin fell 1.5% on Tuesday after failing to hold above $60,000 on Monday. It is now trading at $59,250, which looks set to challenge the weekend low of $58,800. Ether (ETH) is down 1.73% since midnight UTC, trading at $1,580 after failing to breach the $1,640 mark.
Both assets are now testing critical multi-year support levels. Ether has already rebounded from this level twice, in April 2025 and October 2023, while Bitcoin is trading around its lowest point since late 2024. A failure to hold would leave both tokens without an obvious floor.
The altcoin market saw an exaggerated decline on Tuesday, with DeFi tokens ethena (ENA), jupiter (JUP), and ether.fi (ETHFI) all falling between 3.3% and 7.5% as risk appetite continues to decline.
This weakness contrasts with traditional markets, where US stocks have been stable since midnight. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures posted gains of 0.03%, while the Dollar Index (DXY) added 0.25%.
Positioning of derivative products
- HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, has gained over 4.3% in the past 24 hours and is the only major token trading significantly in the green.
- The rally appears spot-driven and has not prompted traders to take more risks on derivatives for now. Open interest (OI) on HYPE futures remains around 40 million tokens, a level it has held since at least June 22.
- Although the overall positioning remains light, it is bullish. Annualized funding rates are around 10%, a sign that perpetual futures are trading above the spot price.
- The biggest OI gainer in the last 24 hours among major cryptocurrencies is the largest memecoin in terms of market value. Open interest jumped to 16 billion tokens, the highest since the October 10 crash and up from 13 billion a day earlier.
- Capital inflows appear bearish rather than bullish, however, given the negative funding rates and negative 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta. The CVD signals that sellers are the most aggressive, hitting sell orders to break through the spread and fill their bearish bets at the best price available.
- The Bitcoin, Ether and XRP futures markets offer little enthusiasm, with open interest stuck in recent ranges. Positioning on SOL remains high, with OI near record highs, a sign of potential volatility ahead.
- Volatility indices continue to point towards market calm. BTC’s 30-day implied volatility indicator, BVIV, fell 11% to 44% on Monday and has held around that level since. Ether’s equivalent index, EVIV, tells the same story.
- On Deribit, BTC puts continue to trade at a premium of over 10% to calls across all time frames, a sign of continued downside concerns. ETH shows a similar short-term trend – weekly puts carry a comparable premium – while longer-term puts are significantly cheaper than calls.
- The block flows featured a BTC short straddle, an options strategy that benefits from low volatility and price consolidation.
Symbolic discussion
- Native DeFi tokens struggled on Tuesday and the negative sentiment didn’t stop there. AI tokens FET, TAO, and RENDER all fell, as did privacy coins zcash (ZEC) and monero (XMR).
- Even Hyperliquid (HYPE), which has outperformed its peers in recent weeks, is trading at $65.3 after falling 2.2% on Tuesday. The HYPE chart appears to be more in a consolidation phase after last month’s rally than in a correction phase, characterized by two higher highs and two higher lows.
- One token in the dark on Tuesday is Stellar Lumens (XLM). The 2014 Ripple-derived token maintains bullish sentiment after DTCC, the largest US financial markets clearinghouse, announced it would connect its tokenized securities platform to the Stellar network in the first half of 2027. The announcement sparked a 100% rally in late May.
- Another token bucking the trend is Lightest (LIT), which benefits from its similarities to HYPE in that it is the native token of a decentralized perpetual exchange. LIT is up 23% over the past week, recording a double-digit gain in the last 24 hours alone.
