The crypto market fell on Tuesday with bitcoin traded at $62,300, having lost 2.5% since midnight UTC, while ether (ETH) fell more than 4% to $1,650.
The sell-off follows Monday’s decline in tech stocks, with another day in the red heralded by Nasdaq 100 futures, which are up 2.5% since midnight.
Tech stocks are struggling because of profit-taking and the risk of higher bond yields, according to Patrick Munnelly, market strategy partner at TickMill.
Altcoins underperformed bitcoin and ether, with tokens like ethena ( ENA ) and hype ( HYPE ) losing 5%-6% and $717 million in liquidations across the market, spurring exaggerated declines.
The dollar index (DXY) rose to its highest level in more than a year, hitting 101.15, the highest level since May 2025.
Derivatives positioning
- The most notable data point in derivatives is the 10% increase in open interest (OI) of SpaceX perpetuals listed on Hyperliquid, Binance and other exchanges, while the price has fallen by 15%.
- This combination validates the downward trend and suggests the application of leverage on the short side. The OI increase is the highest among major tokens, a clear sign of an increased preference for trading traditional assets over blockchain rails.
- SpaceX futures are also now the sixth largest in the world, ahead of several prominent coins such as ZEC, but still behind BTC, ETH, XRP and others.
- Open interest on XRP futures rose to 2.38 billion tokens, revisiting eight-month highs. These continued capital flows come alongside a nearly 2% drop in the token for the week and follows last week’s 5% slide.
- As with SpaceX, this combination validates the downward trend. More so, in fact, because the OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative for the second day in a row, a sign of price action led by traders shorting at market prices rather than passive limit orders.
- Traders continue to scale back exposure to BTC futures. Open interest has dropped to 720K BTC from 742K BTC last week. It reached a peak of 800K BTC at the beginning of this month.
- In ether, futures OI has risen from a five-week low to 14.13 million ETH, but overall positioning remains light compared to the May 28 peak of 15.98 million ETH.
- In general, the sellers seem to be dominant across most of the top 25 coins. Most of these coins have negative OI-adjusted 24-hour CVD.
- Traders are also likely to keep an eye on bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, which has risen from 40%. The increase suggests greater demand for opportunities. Ether’s volatility index, EVIV, shows a similar pattern. Upturns in volatility indices are typically a feature of bearish price trends.
- In the options market, the structure is long calls (or bullish bets) heading into the quarterly expiration on Friday. However, these long positions are at a loss due to the collapse in spot prices through the quarter. Meanwhile, put options, or downside bets, are in-the-money or profit.
- Put-call biases show that the market continues to pay for downside protection, a sign of persistent, cautious sentiment.
Token talk
- Privacy coins dash (DASH) and monero (XMR) showed strength despite Tuesday’s crypto selloff, with DASH only losing 0.2% since midnight and XMR around 0.7%
- The same cannot be said for zcash (ZEC), a rival privacy coin that was hit by an AI-inspired exploit earlier this month. ZEC lost 4.2% in the same period, falling in line with the broader altcoin market.
- AI tokens FET, RENDER and TAO also struggled, falling 3%-5% as negative sentiment from tech stocks spilled over into crypto.
- A positive for investors is that the average Crypto Relative Strength Index (RSI) is currently at 39.05, indicating “oversold” conditions that could pave the way for a bounce or relief rally during the day.
