Cryptocurrency markets remain subdued on Thursday, Bitcoin With prices below $80,000, many altcoins are facing serious losses.
The largest cryptocurrency recently changed hands for about $79,800 after falling to $78,720 on Wednesday. Crucially, it remains below the weekly opening price of $82,500.
U.S. inflation data remains high, with the producer price index (PPI) rising 6%, hitting the highest annual level since 2022, triggering inflation concerns and putting risk assets under pressure.
The “Altcoin Season” indicator fell back to 43/100 after touching 50/100 on Monday, showing the risk-off sentiment among cryptocurrency investors.
Derivatives positioning
- Futures trading volume rose 14% in the 24 hours to $189 million, while open interest (OI) fell 2% to $133 billion, indicating that some positions were unwound amid increased trading activity.
- Liquidations surged 68% to nearly $400 million, with the vast majority coming from long positions. This suggests that recent moves have largely eliminated leveraged bullish bets.
- To illustrate how one-sided positions have become, 24-hour BTC liquidations totaled $117 million, of which $102 million was long. This reinforces the view that market participants are ready for an upward break above the 200-day moving average just above $82,000.
- Despite this, Bitcoin’s OI edged higher, rising to 750K BTC from 745K BTC a day ago. This shows that capital continues to flow into the derivatives market. However, the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative, meaning sell orders dominate buy limit orders.
- Earlier today, Ethereum’s OI reached an all-time high of 15.42 million tokens, surpassing the peak of 15.33 million tokens set in July. This reflects the increasing demand for leverage in range-bound markets, with ETH prices fluctuating between $2,200 and $2,450 over the past four weeks.
- Looking at the broader market, the OI-adjusted 24-hour CVD of most of the top 25 coins remains negative, indicating continued selling pressure. If this situation persists, it could create further downside risks, especially in the derivatives-heavy altcoin market.
- Despite recent volatility and upcoming catalysts such as the Clarification Act hike due today, Bitcoin and Ethereum’s 30-day Implied Volatility Index remains subdued.
- In the Deribit options market, the $75,000 exercised Bitcoin put option expiring on May 29 has become the most actively traded contract. Put options give the holder the right to sell Bitcoin at a predetermined price, indicating downside hedging demand. Interestingly, the rest of the top five most traded contracts are call options.
token talk
- CoinDesk’s Memecoin Select Index (CDMEME) was the worst-performing benchmark on Thursday, down more than 4% since midnight UTC and 10% in the past 24 hours, as risk aversion spreads across the industry.
- The DeFi Select Index (DFX) also showed weakness, falling 1%. The Bitcoin-focused CoinDesk 20 (CD20) fell just 0.16%.
- Of the 100 assets in the Coin Desk 100 (CD100), 75 were in the red on Thursday. Re-staking token ETHFI is leading the downward trend, down 4.1% since midnight and down 7.5% in the past 24 hours.
- A handful of coins resisted the bearish pressure. XDC is up 7.5%, while Human Protocol (H) is up 3.9% since midnight UTC, breaking out of a recent downtrend.
