Bitcoin showed little movement despite Strategy making a fresh purchase, as risk-averse traders stayed on the sidelines ahead of key U.S. inflation data and the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting.
Bitcoin’s recovery stalled on Tuesday even after Strategy (MSTR) added more of the leading cryptocurrency following its late-May sale.
BTC recently hovered around $62,600, largely unchanged from Monday. This came after a 4% rebound on Sunday that briefly pushed prices above $64,000 on some exchanges, including Coinbase.
Strategy—the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder—announced on Monday that it had acquired 1,550 BTC for $101 million, increasing its total holdings to 845,256 BTC. Although this purchase is roughly 48 times larger than the 32 BTC it sold at the end of May, it had no noticeable impact on price action.
Bitcoin’s lack of momentum is also weighing on the broader crypto market. The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index fell 1.8% over 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 80 Index slipped 1.3%.
Overall sentiment remains cautious, with investors unwilling to chase gains aggressively.
“Bitcoin’s recent bounce shows there is still demand on dips, but confidence levels are not as strong as earlier in the year,” said Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, in an email.
He added that despite attention on Strategy’s purchases, macroeconomic conditions are the dominant factor. Investors are closely watching inflation trends and interest rate expectations ahead of next week’s FOMC meeting, as these shape risk appetite across all asset classes, including crypto.
Derivatives positioning
Crypto futures trading volume declined 1.3% to $190.7 billion over 24 hours, while open interest stayed near $103 billion. Liquidations dropped sharply by 48% to $301 million, indicating that much of the excessive leverage has already been cleared out.
Zcash stood out in derivatives markets. Open interest rose about 5% to 2.47 million tokens, its highest level since May 26, while the token recovered to around $472 after falling below $300 last week.
Its 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) turned positive, showing that buyers are actively driving price action through market orders. However, perpetual funding rates remain deeply negative at around -45%, suggesting short positions still dominate. This sets the stage for a possible short squeeze if upward momentum continues.
Open interest in Worldcoin remains close to last week’s record level of 963.6 million tokens, signaling elevated positioning and increased volatility risk. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and Ether open interest remain stable compared to Monday.
CVD across most major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether, is still negative, indicating sellers remain in control of overall market direction.
Volatility measures, including the BVIV and EVIV indexes, continue to ease from recent highs, suggesting panic is fading. However, elevated short-term implied volatility reflects market sensitivity ahead of Wednesday’s U.S. CPI data release.
On Deribit, the $60,000 put option remains heavily traded, and one-week risk reversals continue to favor puts over calls. BTC puts are trading at an 8 volatility-point premium, showing persistent concern about potential downside.
Token developments
Humanity Protocol’s H token collapsed by more than 80% after attackers compromised private keys belonging to a member of the Humanity Foundation and drained over $32 million from around 17 wallets. Losses are still ongoing.
The token plunged from about $0.67 to nearly $0.13, briefly touching $0.05 at its lowest point, marking an intraday drop of roughly 90%.
The attacker continues to offload stolen H tokens for Ether and has also minted an additional 100 million H on BNB Chain, valued at around $11 million, raising expectations of further selling pressure.
Humanity Protocol, which focuses on palm-scan identity verification and positions itself as a competitor to Worldcoin, has urged users to avoid interacting with its bridge and liquidity pools while security teams and exchanges investigate.
The incident reflects a broader 2026 trend of attackers targeting private keys rather than exploiting smart contract code. Similar cases include Drift Protocol losing about $285 million in April due to compromised admin keys, and Kelp DAO suffering roughly $292 million in losses from a validator bridge exploit.
Sahara AI’s SAHARA token also dropped sharply, falling around 60% to approximately $0.016, close to its all-time low of $0.01355. Trading volume reached about $215 million against a market cap of roughly $49 million, indicating heavy capitulation.
Unlike Humanity Protocol, Sahara AI stated there were no vulnerabilities in its contracts or products. It attributed the decline to a scheduled transfer of 600 million tokens via its Chainlink cross-chain bridge and confirmed that team and investor allocations remain secure on-chain.
SAHARA is now down roughly 75% since its launch in June 2025.
