Bitcoin has given back gains from an early Thursday recovery, now trading at $83,344, down 1.23% since midnight UTC, with a bond selloff that pushed the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield to its highest since 2007 weighing on crypto for a second day.
The move has taken the whole market with it, ether is down 1.55%, XRP lost 2.87% while solana (SOL) is trading at $113.14 having lost 1.61%. While the smaller tokens led a slight recovery in the European morning, they are now suffering the hardest, with NEAR and HYPE down by 3.32% and 3.94% respectively.
The dollar index (DXY) added 0.13% to 101.24 – its highest level since July, while gold is down by 0.71% to $4,257 and U.S. equity futures trend lower again. S&P 500 futures lost 0.61% while Nasdaq 100 tumbled by more than 1%.
Derivatives positioning
- Taker flow stays bearish for a second day: Shorts made up over 52% of the 24-hour taker volume, which rose 10% to $250 billion even as open interest fell nearly 6% to $149 billion. Rising volume plus falling OI plus short-heavy flow points to existing positions closing out rather than fresh short conviction building.
- BTC OI falls faster than price: Bitcoin futures OI dropped 6% against a 3% price decline over 24 hours. Since OI here is notional, a drop that outpaces the price fall means real contracts are closing, not just the dollar value of unchanged positions shrinking, consistent with genuine long unwinding rather than fresh shorts piling in.
- Binance whales aren’t buying the bearish story: Despite the weak positioning elsewhere, the whale long/short account ratio on Binance, the top exchange by volume, sits back above 1 at 1.30, while the whale position ratio has held under 2 for a second straight day. Large accounts look to be sitting out or leaning against the broader selling, a divergence worth watching rather than dismissing.
- XRP mirrors BTC; ETH and SOL don’t: XRP’s notional OI is falling faster than its price, like bitcoin, pointing to real position closing. ETH and SOL’s OI decline roughly matches their price drop, which looks more like existing positions simply losing dollar value as price falls, not active deleveraging.
- CVD confirms the sell pressure, alts wear it worse: The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta is negative across majors including BTC and ETH, meaning aggressive selling has outpaced aggressive buying. XRP, SUI and AVAX show the most negative readings, marking them as where that selling pressure is concentrated hardest.
- Litecoin is the exception, and the data backs a real move: LTC is up nearly 8% in 24 hours, and its futures OI, measured directly in tokens here, has risen to 8.96 million, the highest since Jan. 18, extending a rising streak since Sept. 19. Rising price alongside rising OI in coin terms is a cleaner signal than the notional-based reads above, it points to genuine fresh long build-up, not short covering.
- Implied vol stays calm despite the selloff: BTC and ETH’s 30-day implied volatility indices remain pinned in recent ranges, with short-term IV still cheap relative to realized volatility in both cases. Options traders aren’t pricing panic even as spot weakens.
- Options skew turns defensive: BTC’s one-week skew has flipped positive, showing renewed demand for downside protection. ETH shows the same shift. Both line up with the broader market weakness rather than contradicting it.
- Big expiry looms Friday: Over $17 billion in BTC and ETH options expire on Deribit Friday, with most positions currently in the money. The open question is whether traders roll those positions into later expiries or let them settle, either could add to volatility into the weekend.
Token talk
- Litecoin held its gains through the selloff, up 8.1% since midnight UTC and 6.2% over the rolling day. The move comes as traders position themselves ahead of next July’s block reward halving, with historical bottoms typically arriving six to 12 months beforehand.
- Ethereum basic (ETC) added 7.6% on the day to $9.42 and lending protocol token morpho climbed by 4.1% to $2.67.
- The damage is concentrated in the tokens that ran hardest earlier in the week, AI inference token venice falling 5.2% since midnight and 9.6% over 24 hours to $28.71, perpetuals exchange token lighter (LIT) 4.2% and 2.1% to $5.09, and pump.fun 4.1% on the day and 11% over the rolling window.
- Hyperliquid (HYPE) lost 3.9% to $90.39 and NEAR 3.1% to $4.2, with the AI token now 8.7% lower over the past 24 hours despite being one of the srongest performers over the past week.
- XRP (XRP) and bitcoin cash were the weakest of the majors, each falling 2.7% since midnight to $1.46 and $328.56, with XRP 8.3% lower over 24 hours and bitcoin cash 6.8%, the latter of which is giving back gains from Wednesday’s CME futures announcement.
