The crypto market is clinging to a crucial level of support, with bitcoin barely moved since midnight UTC after rebounding from its lowest level since September 2024 on Thursday.
The major cryptocurrency recently traded near $59,700 after dropping as low as $58,100.
Ether (ETH) failed to mirror bitcoin’s rejection, falling another 1% and extending its streak of declines to three straight days. It recently held around $1,550.
US stocks also begin Friday indicating weakness, with Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures down 1% and 0.4%, respectively, since midnight, as the technical rally of the past three months continues to unwind.
A sign that countered the bearish market sentiment was aave which added as much as 6.8% since midnight and built on a 17% gain over the past week after CoinDesk reported that crypto exchange Kraken was looking to acquire a 15% stake in the DeFi company.
Derivatives positioning
- Market volatility continues to weigh on leveraged futures positions. Over the past 24 hours, another $1 billion in positions were liquidated, with long positions again accounting for the majority. In particular, ETH saw more liquidations than BTC in the last 12 hours.
- Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) rose for the second day in a row to 778,000 BTC, a sharp increase from recent lows near 730,000 BTC. Open interest rose during Thursday’s late selloff, suggesting traders added shorts to the dip in anticipation of further downside.
- The picture is different in ether futures, where open interest has been stable near the 14 million ETH level since at least June 15th. This is somewhat constructive as it indicates that traders are not aggressively shorting the decline. A similar pattern applies to XRP.
- Solana’s open interest has pulled back from record highs but remains high compared to recent months, pointing to the potential for continued volatility.
- The OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta continues to show bearish dominance across most of the top 25 cryptocurrencies, with the notable exceptions of BNB, SOL and TON. The negative reading suggests that bears are more aggressive than bulls, favoring market orders over passive limit orders. This trend has continued since Tuesday.
- Annualized 30-day implied volatility indices signal rising levels of concern. Bitcoin’s BVIV index jumped to 53% early today, its highest level since June 7 and a sharp increase from the June 16 low of 39%. ETH’s index rose to 66%.
- Wall Street’s equivalent, the VIX, has also risen to 20% from 15% recently, but remains within the range seen since early April, indicating stocks are not yet in panic mode. A similar message comes from the US financial market’s implied volatility index, MOVE.
- On Deribit, the bias for one-week bitcoin options is approaching 30%, reflecting a significant premium for puts or defensive positions over calls and underscoring strong downside fears. One- and three-month biases convey a similar message.
- Block flows included a large trade in the $53,000 put expiring on July 10, along with demand for ether risk reversals.
Token talk
- Aave outperformed the broader altcoin market, and an honorable mention goes to solana (SOL), which has added 2% since midnight and is now trading around $68.95 after falling to $64.05 on Thursday.
- AI tokens continue to unwind; RENDER, NEAR, FET and TAO lost between 1% and 1.5% on Friday, extending their decline.
- Hyperliquid ( HYPE ) also fell, down 2.6%. It has now lost 18.5% since hitting a record high 12 days ago.
- Athena (ENA) remains one of the worst performing altcoins, losing another 5% on Friday. It is now down 34% after hitting a monthly high on June 3.
- ENA’s predicament can be attributed to the ongoing bear market, as part of the platform’s dividend generation strategy is tied to positive funding rates, which have now turned negative.
