The cryptocurrency market is relatively stable today. Bitcoin is down slightly, around 0.62%, trading at $65,674. It’s been fluctuating between $64,000 and $66,800 for the last week.
The market seems to be pausing after a recent surge. Bitcoin has climbed over 13% since hitting a low of $57,750 in July, but it struggled to break past the $66,000 resistance level yesterday. This suggests the price will likely move sideways for now, rather than experience a big jump or drop.
Financial markets aren’t providing much guidance right now. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 are down slightly, about 0.3%, the dollar is stable, and gold and silver are decreasing in value after recent gains as investors sought safe options. This leaves cryptocurrency without any strong signals from the broader economic environment to suggest where it might go next.
Derivatives positioning
- Period of stasis: The crypto futures market appears to be in a state of stasis, with 24-hour trading volumes down just 1% at $147 billion and open interest (OI) holding steady around $111 billion. The 24-hour long-short ratio, which tracks taker volume, is nearly balanced. Taker volume refers to buy and sell trades executed immediately at ongoing market prices, and the current equilibrium suggests a lack of aggressive directional conviction among traders.
- Open interest shifts in major assets: Bitcoin’s futures open interest has slipped back to 743K BTC from the highs of over 760K BTC seen early this week. This decline indicates an unwinding of existing bets as the price rally stalls and valuations pull back slightly. A potential silver lining for bulls is that the drop in OI suggests the price weakness is being driven by long liquidations rather than the entry of fresh shorts betting on a deeper decline. In contrast, ETH‘s OI has ticked up during the overnight price drop. However, the price action is still being led by buyers using market orders rather than passive limit orders, as evidenced by ETH’s positive 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD).
- Mixed sentiment in altcoins: The broader market shows a split in aggressive leadership. Several coins, including ZEC, HBAR, LTC, AVAX, and SUI, are currently posting positive CVDs, indicating taker-buy pressure. However, there are just as many prominent names on the opposite side of the fence showing negative CVDs, including BTC, XLM, DOGE, and SHIB, signaling that aggressive sellers remain active in those specific markets.
- Rising volatility signals potential caution: Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, has now increased for the fifth straight day. Traders may want to keep a close eye on this metric because, since the launch of spot ETFs, the correlation between Bitcoin’s spot price and the BVIV has been consistently negative. Under this regime, an upswing in the BVIV often serves as a warning of an impending price drop. Meanwhile, ether’s volatility index, EVIV, remains relatively stable.
- Options flows and evaporating fear: Flows across the Deribit exchange and the OTC desk Paradigm featured notable demand for the BTC $70,000 call option expiring Aug. 7. While some traders were positioned for upside, others simultaneously picked up longer-duration puts as a downside hedge. Ethereum options have also seen a general demand for upside exposure. Broadly speaking, market fear appears to be evaporating as put-call skews for both BTC and ETH slip toward zero. Notably, ETH’s one-week skew briefly turned negative yesterday, marking a temporary bullish shift in sentiment where calls became more expensive than puts.
Token talk
- was the standout mover on Thursday, surging 12.18% to $0.063. The Donald Trump family-linked token has now recovered to a $2 billion market cap, though it remains deep in the red from its all-time high.
- extended its recent run, rising nearly 4% to $1.989, keeping it among the more consistent AI outperformers of the past fortnight.
- Ethena (ENA) added 2% to $0.092, continuing a quiet rehabilitation that has seen it outperform most DeFi peers over the past week despite sitting more than 90% below its September 2025 peak.
- Lighter (LIT) continued to slide, falling 2.96% as profit-taking weighs on the token for a third consecutive session following its 200%-plus rally between May and early July.
- CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season indicator holds at 51/100 as the market waits for bitcoin to make a decisive move.
2026-07-23 13:34