bitcoin fell 1.5% on Tuesday after failing to hold above $60,000 on Monday. It is now trading at $59,250 and looks set to challenge the weekend lows of $58,800. Ether (ETH) is down 1.73% since midnight UTC, trading at $1,580 after failing to break above $1,640.
Both assets are now testing critical multi-year support levels. Ether has bounced from this level twice before, in April 2025 and October 2023, while bitcoin is trading around its lowest point since late 2024. Failure to hold would leave both tokens without an obvious bottom.
The altcoin market saw an exaggerated decline on Tuesday, with DeFi tokens ethena (ENA), jupiter (JUP), and ether.fi (ETHFI) falling between 3.3% and 7.5% as risk appetite continues to decline.
The weakness contrasts with traditional markets, where U.S. stocks have been flat since midnight. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures posted gains of 0.03%, while the dollar index (DXY) added 0.25%.
Derivatives positioning
- HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, has gained over 4.3% in the last 24 hours and is the only major token trading noticeably in the green.
- The rally appears to be driven by spot and has not motivated traders to take on more risk with derivatives for now. Open interest (OI) in HYPE futures remains at around 40 million tokens, a level it has held since at least June 22.
- While the overall positioning remains light, it is leaning bullish. Annualized funding rates are near 10%, a sign that perpetual futures are trading above the spot price.
- The biggest OI gainer of the last 24 hours among the major cryptocurrencies is the largest memecoin by market value. Open interest has risen to 16 billion tokens, the highest level since the October 10 crash and up from 13 billion the previous day.
- However, inflows appear more bearish than bullish, given the negative funding rates and negative OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta. The CVD indicates that sellers are the more aggressive side, executing sell orders to cross the spread and complete their bearish bets with the best available offer.
- Bitcoin, ether and XRP futures markets offer little excitement, with open interest locked in recent ranges. Positioning in SOL remains elevated, with OI near all-time highs, a sign of potential volatility ahead.
- Volatility indices continue to point to market calm. BTC’s 30-day implied volatility indicator, BVIV, fell between 11% and 44% on Monday and has remained at that level since. Ether’s equivalent index, EVIV, tells the same story.
- On Deribit, BTC puts continue to trade at a premium of more than 10% over calls on all time frames, a sign of persistent bearish concerns. ETH shows a similar pattern on the short end (weekly puts command a comparable premium), while additional puts are notably cheaper than calls.
- Block flows featured a short BTC combination, an options strategy that benefits from low volatility and price consolidation.
symbolic talk
- Native DeFi tokens struggled on Tuesday and the negative sentiment didn’t stop there. AI tokens FET, TAO and RENDER fell, as did privacy coins zcash (ZEC) and monero (XMR).
- Even Hyperliquid (HYPE), which has outperformed its peers in recent weeks, is trading at $65.3 after falling 2.2% on Tuesday. The HYPE chart appears to be more in a consolidation phase after last month’s rally than in a corrective phase, which is characterized by two higher highs along with two higher lows.
- One positive chip on Tuesday is Stellar Lumens (XLM). Ripple’s 2014 forked token maintains bullish sentiment after DTCC, the largest US financial markets clearinghouse, said it will connect its tokenized securities platform to the Stellar network in the first half of 2027. The announcement fueled a 100% rally in late May.
- Another token bucking the trend is Lighter (LIT), which benefits from its similarities to HYPE in that it is the native token of a decentralized perpetual exchange. LIT surged 23% over the past week, posting a double-digit gain in the last 24 hours alone.
