Bitcoin weakened to about $76,500 as intensified U.S. strikes against Iranian targets pushed investors away from riskier assets. BTC has declined more than 1% since midnight UTC and is down roughly 3% over the past week.
The latest escalation sent energy markets higher. Brent crude moved above $93 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate climbed toward $90. The Dollar Index was also slightly firmer, gaining 0.13% since midnight.
Rising oil prices added to inflation concerns and helped lift the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield toward 4.8%. U.S. equity futures also moved lower, with Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.31% and S&P 500 futures off 0.11%.
Bitcoin Positioning Remains Relatively Light
Crypto derivatives data shows a modest shift toward bearish sentiment, but traders have not aggressively increased leverage against bitcoin.
The 24-hour long-short taker volume ratio moved into bearish territory, with shorts accounting for 51.5% of trading flow, according to CoinGlass. The reading followed several sessions of neutral positioning. Total trading volume increased 19% to $203 billion, while open interest remained near $136 billion for a second straight day.
Bitcoin futures open interest was also unchanged at approximately 700,000 BTC. Despite the price decline, there was no clear indication that traders were building heavily leveraged short positions. Current open interest remains below the 801,000 BTC peak recorded this year.
Ether is showing stronger signs of bearish positioning. ETH’s price fell as open interest edged higher, a setup that typically indicates additional short exposure. Open interest reached 13.72 million ETH, the highest since Aug. 18, although it remains below May’s record of 15.68 million.
Cumulative volume delta data also favors sellers. Negative CVD readings for bitcoin and ether indicate that shorts are being executed at market prices instead of through passive limit orders. Most major tokens show the same pattern, with UNI standing out as the exception.
UNI Rallies While TRX Shorts Pile Up
UNI continued to outperform the broader market, gaining 4% over 24 hours and reaching a seven-month high of $6.37. Futures open interest climbed to a record 89.44 million tokens, supporting the spot-market move.
Despite the rally, UNI does not appear excessively crowded. Annualized funding rates remain below 10%, suggesting a bullish bias without the extreme leverage that can make a token vulnerable to a sharp long squeeze.
TRX, by contrast, remains heavily skewed toward shorts. Funding rates were around minus 85% for a second consecutive day, indicating that bearish positioning remains crowded.
Volatility expectations have also eased. The 30-day implied volatility indexes for BTC and ETH have erased their mid-August spikes, suggesting traders expect less turbulence ahead.
Options activity is somewhat more cautious. On Deribit, the $70,000 bitcoin put expiring Sept. 25 was the most traded BTC contract over the past 24 hours. Four of the other five highest-volume contracts were calls, keeping the overall positioning mixed.
For ether, the $2,200 put expiring Sept. 11 led trading volume, while most of the other top-five contracts were also puts. Such contracts can be used to protect portfolios against falling prices or to speculate on further declines.
Altcoins Show Mixed Performance
Ether.fi’s ETHFI gained 4.63% since midnight to around 58.9 cents, making it one of the few tokens to advance as the wider market weakened.
Monero added 2.27% to about $516, extending its gain from $464 a week earlier. XMR has remained relatively detached from broader crypto-market movements and has been among the stronger performers over the past two weeks.
Zcash rose 1% to $824.63 and has gained 71.23% over the last 30 days.
Arbitrum’s ARB added another 9.33% over 24 hours to 11.68 cents, extending Tuesday’s rally. Continued revenue from Robinhood Chain flowing into the Arbitrum DAO treasury has supported the move.
DASH was the weakest performer, falling 4.72% to $41.82. PUMP declined 3.54% to 0.4223 cents, while NEAR dropped 2.29% to $1.8429. XRP also lagged, falling 1.72% to $1.3281 and extending its seven-day decline to 6.22%.
