Bitcoin stalled on Tuesday, falling for the first time this month and snapping its longest stretch of gains since March. It had risen to $64,500, the highest point in more than two weeks, on Monday.
Ether (ETH) tracked the major cryptocurrency, falling to $1,770 after hitting a high of $1,830 on Monday.
The rebound in July can be attributed to a short-squeeze setup identified in late June, which saw heavy short interest despite bitcoin trading at its lowest point since 2024.
Bitcoin and other crypto tokens took advantage of a bias in short positions, recovering from oversold territory and advancing every day since the start of the month.
The total crypto market has grown by 8.4% since July 1 and is now worth $2.16 trillion.
U.S. stocks fell in premarket trade on Tuesday, with Nasdaq 100 index futures losing 0.9% since midnight UTC as the slide from June’s record high continues.
Derivatives positioning
- Over $500 million in leveraged crypto futures bets have been liquidated by exchanges in 24 hours, with shorts or bearish positions accounting for most of the tally for a sixth straight day.
- Despite the recent price strength, BTC futures open interest (OI) has fallen to 740K BTC, down from the July 3 high of 776K BTC. This shows that derivatives traders are not participating in the price increase along with continued weakness in spot demand as evidenced by ETF flows and the Coinbase premium. This raises questions about the sustainability of the gains.
- The same goes for ether (ETH), which recently outperformed BTC.
- OI in SOL has pulled back to 68 million tokens from the peak of over 76 million on June 24th. The message is the same. The 10% increase in the token has so far failed to stimulate demand for leveraged games.
- Canton Network’s CC token is down over 4% in 24 hours, accompanied by a 3% increase in futures OI to 245.59 million tokens. This, combined with negative funding rates and 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, points to a growing bearish bias.
- Most tokens have a negative OI-adjusted CVD, a sign that bears are more aggressive in shorting market orders rather than passive limit order plays. It suggests the potential for losses ahead.
- Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, has jumped to 40%, snapping a six-day losing streak. Still, the gauge remains well below January’s highs near 60% in a positive sign for crypto bulls. The same applies to ether’s index, EVIV.
- On Deribit, options continue to showcase lingering downside concerns in both bitcoin and ether. Options volume in BTC paints a mixed picture with both calls and placing it on the list of most traded bets in the past 24 hours.
- On decentralized exchange Derive crossed a large long call condor strategy on the HYPE band, indicating expectations of a range between $75 and $80 until July 24.
Token talk
- The altcoin market continues to show internal contradictions. Tokens such as FET, KASPA and WLD have all posted losses despite the broader market-wide rally this week, while ETHFI and LIT have fared better, adding more than 30% over the past seven days.
- was one of the best performing tokens on Tuesday, rising 4.8. It is worth noting that the token linked to President Donald Trump’s family has fallen by more than 89% since it was created last August.
- The decoupling of some altcoins demonstrates a maturing of the sector with token performances based on underlying sentiment and onchain activity. Historically, the entire altcoin market moved in unison.
- CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator is at 46/100, below Friday’s high and higher than in May, when it was consistently around 30/100.
