bitcoin suffered fresh losses on Thursday after bearing the brunt of rising energy prices, with Brent crude oil rising to $114 and Oman crude rising to $150.
European natural gas futures followed suit, rising around 25% to over $78 per MWh on Thursday as Iran attacked key Gulf energy infrastructure following an Israeli attack on its South Pars gas field.
Bitcoin traded near $70,000, having lost 1.6% since midnight UTC, while ether (ETH) fell 1.7% to $2,160.
The Federal Reserve also made an impact after it left rates unchanged in the 3.50%-3.75% range on Wednesday, halting a cycle of rate cuts to boost the US dollar.
As a result, risk assets fell across the board, with Nasdaq 100 futures down about 0.3% since midnight UTC.
Derivatives positioning
- Crypto platforms have liquidated nearly $600 million in leveraged crypto futures bets in 24 hours, with long or bullish positions accounting for the majority of the total. The overnight price drop clearly caught the bulls by surprise.
- Industry-wide, futures open interest (OI) has decreased 5.6% to $106.90.
- Ether OI futures fell 9% while the spot price of the token fell 6%. This combination represents capital outflows.
- Futures linked to gold tether (XAUT) and the privacy-focused ZEC saw double-digit declines, indicating risk aversion among investors.
- Bearish short plays are back in demand, as evidenced by negative funding rates for BTC, ETH, BNB, SOL, and other tokens. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta for most of these coins is negative, underscoring the position.
- Fear has invaded the market again. Volmex’s BVIV, which measures implied or expected 30-day price turbulence in bitcoin, is up more than 5% at 58.36%, ending a week-long decline. The same goes for ether.
- On Deribit, bitcoin and ether selling biases have strengthened, again indicating greater bearish concerns.
- Block flows presented a huge demand for ether, a volatility strategy. In the case of BTC, traders looked for risk reversals and placed spreads.
symbolic talk
- Several altcoins suffered strong downward moves on Thursday, notably bittensor (TAO) and hyperliquid (HYPE), which lost 8.8% and 6.5%, respectively, since midnight.
- The move in the altcoin market can be attributed to a lack of liquidity in a market that remains fractured following a $19 billion deleveraging in October.
- A select few tokens showed strength despite the broader market pullback. NEO rose 4.2% and the ETHFI token rally continued its strong start to the year, adding 1.5% to $0.55.
- The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) is in the red after losing around 1% since midnight, while the DeFi Select Index (DFX) and the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) are down 1.4% and 2%, respectively.
