Volatility returned to crypto markets Monday as bitcoin spiked up to $79,480 before quickly reversing to $77,800.
The move began around 23:00 UTC with the opening of U.S. equity and CME bitcoin futures, a period that often sees heightened volatility.
By 05:30 UTC, the price began falling after it failed to break above the $80,000 level, dropping 2% in an hour.
The decline occurred as oil reached its highest level since the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran began. Brent crude trades at $107 per barrel after U.S. President Donald Trump canceled plans to send U.S. officials for talks in Pakistan on Saturday.
Ether (ETH) recently traded around $2,320 after losing 2.2% since midnight UTC, underperforming bitcoin, which is down by 1.1%, but not falling as precipitously as several altcoins.
Derivatives positioning
- Nearly $300 million in crypto futures bets have been liquidated in the past 24hours. Most of these have been bearish short plays, which likely faced the brunt of the cryptocurrency’s brief rally to nearly $79,500.
- Open interest (OI) in XRP futures rose by nearly 2.5% in 24 hours. That’s the biggest increase among major tokens, including bitcoin, ether and solana (SOL). The OI touched a one-week high of 1.82 billion XRP alongside negative perpetual futures funding rates and OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta. This combination paints a bearish picture, consistent with the bitcoin and ether markets.
- Analysts, however, said that persistent negative funding rates in BTC are mainly due to institutions hedging their bullish exposure in related markets and do not represent an outright bearish bet on the market.
- HBAR, CC, XLM and HYPE are other standout OI gainers of the past 24 hours.
- SUI records the most negative CVD, suggesting sustained aggressive selling through market orders. A Sui-based DeFi protocol named Scallop was hacked early today, and the perpetrators walked away with approximately 150,000 SUI tokens valued just over $140,000.
- Bitcoin and ether’s 30-day implied volatility indexes extended declines, painting a picture of market calm that supports continued price rallies in the two assets. This is consistent with the recent drop in Wall Street’s VIX index, a gauge for the S&P 500 index, and record highs in other key measures, including the Nasdaq.
- On Deribit, bitcoin and ether options continue to show a bias for puts across all time frames. Ether options expiring in December and next March are notably less bearish than their bitcoin counterparts.
- Bitcoin’s $80,000 strike call option is the most popular on Deribit, boasting a notional open interest of over $1.5 billion. The dealer gamma here is positive, which implies that dealers (market makers) could sell on a potential breakout above this level and similarly buy the dip, arresting the price volatility.
- Speaking of flows, Laser Digital said investors are favoring risk reversals over outright puts. This means traders prefer options strategies that profit from price swings and differences in how options are priced at different strike levels.
Token talk
- While the broader market was volatile on Monday, the altcoin sector was hit hardest during the 05:30 UTC selloff.
- Liquid restaking token Lido (LDO) led losses, giving back all of Sunday’s gains to fall around 17%.
- The bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index is down 1.5% since midnight UTC, while the DeFi Select Index (DFX) has lost 2.3%, with only the Smart Contract Platform Select Index (SCPX) performing worse, down 2.5%.
- A handful of tokens managed to avoid the selloff, notably PENGU, JUP and CHZ, which rose 9.1%, 4% and 3.1%, respectively.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator sits at a neutral 39/100, unchanged from last week and well below last month’s high of 51/100.