The cryptocurrency market remains under significant selling pressure, with only five digital assets among the top 100 by market capitalization posting gains of at least 1% over the past 24 hours. The limited number of advancing tokens highlights the weakness in overall market sentiment.
Arbitrum (ARB), Render (RNDR), Pepe (PEPE), Quant (QNT) and GateToken (GT) were the only cryptocurrencies to achieve gains of 1% or more during the period. Meanwhile, leading digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP and Solana (SOL), continued to trade in negative territory, with only a handful of smaller tokens showing resilience.
The weakness across crypto markets coincides with growing concerns about another potential selloff in technology stocks. Nvidia (NVDA), the leading AI chipmaker and the world’s largest publicly traded company by market capitalization, dropped more than 4% in premarket trading.
The decline followed reports involving CEO Jensen Huang, who reportedly admitted to an affair with a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of having ties to Chinese intelligence. Nvidia’s board has launched an independent investigation into the allegations.
Crypto Futures Activity Signals Market Deleveraging
Futures trading volume climbs: Cryptocurrency futures volume surged more than 200% to approximately $180 billion over the past 24 hours, recovering from reduced activity during the weekend.
However, total open interest fell 3% to around $127 billion, suggesting that traders were closing existing positions and reducing their exposure to the market.
Meanwhile, liquidations reached approximately $1.1 billion. The taker buy-sell ratio showed a slight selling bias at 51.5%, indicating that sellers maintained a marginal advantage in market orders.
Bitcoin funding rates remain positive: Bitcoin futures open interest decreased by only 0.2%, compared with a 2.2% decline in its spot price. This suggests that derivatives exposure remained relatively stable despite the market correction.
BTC liquidations totaled approximately $305 million. Although funding rates remained positive, they declined from Thursday’s levels, showing that bullish traders were still paying short sellers but with a smaller premium.
Ethereum derivatives turn increasingly bearish: Ethereum recorded a sharper contraction in market participation, with open interest falling 6.7% against a 5.9% price decline.
ETH liquidations reached approximately $498 million, exceeding Bitcoin’s liquidation total despite Ethereum having roughly half its open interest.
Funding rates also moved below zero after remaining positive on Thursday. This indicates that short-position holders are now paying long traders, reflecting a shift in derivatives market sentiment.
ZEC and XRP see deeper capital withdrawals: Other major altcoins also experienced substantial reductions in futures exposure.
Zcash (ZEC) open interest declined 9.7% as its price dropped 4.5%. XRP futures open interest contracted 9.2%, compared with a 6.5% price decline.
The larger reductions in open interest suggest that traders are closing positions and withdrawing capital amid deteriorating market conditions.
Nvidia perpetual futures attract increased activity: Trading volume in Binance-listed NVDA perpetual contracts jumped more than 200%, exceeding $500 million. The increase followed the allegations involving Jensen Huang and Nvidia’s subsequent decision to investigate the matter.
Options markets price in greater volatility: Bitcoin’s one-week implied volatility climbed to approximately 43%, up from 33% on Thursday. Ethereum’s corresponding measure increased from 46% to around 60%.
Options skew also increased considerably, pointing to stronger demand for protection against further losses. Bitcoin’s one-week skew rose to approximately 13% from 2%, while Ethereum’s climbed to 15% from 7%.
The changes indicate that options traders are increasingly paying higher premiums for put contracts to hedge against potential downside movements.
Bitcoin put contracts dominate options activity: Four of Bitcoin’s six most actively traded options contracts were puts, with strike prices ranging between $70,000 and $72,000.
Ethereum options activity was more evenly distributed, with three calls and three puts among the six most active contracts. Its leading contract was a December put option carrying a $1,900 strike price.
Altcoin Performance: ETH and XRP Under Pressure
Ether loses its 200-day moving average: Ethereum declined approximately 5.9% to $2,100 after closing Sunday’s session below its 200-day moving average for the first time since August 18.
The decline contributed to substantial liquidation activity, with approximately $501 million in ETH positions forming part of the $1.16 billion liquidated across cryptocurrency markets during the previous 24 hours. Most of the losses involved traders holding long positions.
XRP records one of the steepest declines: XRP fell approximately 7.3%, making it one of the weakest performers among leading altcoins as the broader cryptocurrency downturn intensified.
Payment cryptocurrencies lead sector losses: Payment-oriented digital assets recorded the largest sector decline, losing more than 5% on average.
DeFi tokens dropped approximately 3.5%, while memecoins declined 2.35%. Layer-two cryptocurrencies performed relatively better, falling just 0.12% over the same period.
Arbitrum stands out among gainers: ARB remained one of the few cryptocurrencies moving higher despite the widespread market correction, advancing more than 5% over 24 hours.
Increasing on-chain activity involving real-world assets (RWAs) appears to be supporting demand for the Arbitrum ecosystem, helping the token outperform the broader cryptocurrency market.
