bitcoin It once again failed to break out of its one-month trading range over the weekend, selling below the key $74,000 resistance level to recently trade at $70,600.
Ether (ETH) and the altcoin market followed suit as ETH fell from the April 11 high of $2,320 to $2,190. There remains little change since midnight UTC.
The sell-off came as Brent crude oil climbed back above $100 a barrel after US President Donald Trump ordered a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran has been a direct driver of risk asset price developments over the past month, with US stocks and cryptocurrencies inversely correlated with oil and the US dollar.
For now, bitcoin and the broader crypto market remain in a trading range that has persisted since early February, failing to break above $75,000 on the upside while holding firm above $63,000 on the downside.
Derivatives positioning
- Futures tied to most major tokens, including bitcoin and ether, have declined slightly over the past 24 hours. The move signals traders are reducing risk after President Trump ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, causing oil prices to surge.
- While oil prices increased by 5%, open interest (OI) on Binance crude oil futures decreased by more than 1%. Activity on decentralized platform Hyperliquid picked up over the weekend, with combined OI in Brent and WTI futures surpassing $1 billion.
- Futures linked to Strong capital inflows were recorded, and open interest hit its highest since February 26. This is not necessarily bullish, as both perpetual funding rates and the 24-hour cumulative volume delta remain negative, suggesting that inflows are being largely driven by traders seeking short positioning or actively building short exposure rather than accumulating long positions.
- Except for HYPE, LINK, AVAX, TRX, and ZEC, all top 25 coins have had a negative CVD, indicating that sell-side aggression is offsetting buy-side aggression across the market.
- A negative CVD indicates that there are more participants selling through active bids than buying by raising requests.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum options-based implied volatility metrics remain low on most time frames, suggesting the market is pricing in calmer and slower price movements. The volatility curve is also quite flat and does not show great expectations of sudden spikes in the future.
- Still, downside concerns remain. BTC puts are currently trading at a premium of 5 points or more on all time frames, indicating increased demand for downside protection. ETH put options are also high, although to a noticeably lower degree than BTC.
- Block flows featured spreads and call schedule combinations, with these two strategies accounting for more than 50% of total activity over the past 24 hours, indicating investors’ preference for time decay and volatility rather than a clear directional bias.
symbolic talk
- The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) and the DeFi Select Index (DFX) were in the black on Monday along with the altcoin-dominated CoinDesk 100 (CD100), while bitcoin and larger token-dominated indices lost ground following the oil price surge above $100 per barrel.
- DeFi token AAVE was one of the best performers, up around 5%, followed by HYPE and JUP, which added around 2%.
- But it was memecoins that dominated Monday’s gains: BROCCOLI, BAN, and 币安人生 all posted gains of over 10%, demonstrating investor appetite for highly speculative tokens in what would otherwise be a very flat market.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 36/100, higher than February’s sub-20 low, but below the 50/100 it reached last month.
