Crypto markets remain under pressure as traders position cautiously ahead of key U.S. inflation data expected later on Wednesday, with forecasts pointing to a rise in living costs to above 4% in May.
Privacy-focused Zcash (ZEC) and decentralized exchange token HYPE from Hyperliquid have each fallen more than 10% over the past 24 hours, highlighting broad risk-off sentiment. Other major altcoins including ADA, ONDO, and BCH are also down over 4%, while the CoinDesk 20 Index slipped 3% during the same period.
Bitcoin (BTC) has pulled back below $61,500, largely reversing its weekend rebound that briefly pushed prices above $64,000 on some exchanges. More importantly, BTC is now trading below its 200-week simple moving average, a widely watched long-term technical indicator.
FxPro analyst Alex Kuptsikevich noted that historically, trading near this level has often coincided with extended downtrends, sometimes lasting close to a year on average.
Derivatives positioning turns more defensive
Futures activity shows mixed but cautious positioning. Total crypto futures volume rose 1.2% to $193 billion, while open interest declined 1.5% to $102.27 billion. Liquidations surged 38% to $418 million, with long positions accounting for more than $300 million as prices dropped toward $61,000.
Bitcoin futures open interest rose to 728,000 BTC despite falling prices, suggesting new short positions are being added as traders bet on further downside.
This bearish bias is reinforced by negative funding rates and negative volume delta, indicating sellers are aggressively hitting bids rather than passively waiting.
Solana futures open interest also increased to 69.58 million tokens, nearing recent highs, while funding rates and volume signals remain negative—mirroring broader market weakness.
Across major assets including ETH and XRP, funding rates and volume trends remain negative, with XMR standing out as the only coin showing slightly positive momentum.
Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility climbed to 51.21% from 45.8%, reflecting rising uncertainty ahead of the CPI release. Ether volatility has also increased.
On Deribit, short-dated put options for BTC and ETH continue to trade at a premium over calls, signaling persistent demand for downside protection. Meanwhile, one-week implied volatility remains relatively low versus realized volatility, favoring option buyers.
A structured options trade in July expiry suggests limited directional conviction, with positioning designed to profit if BTC consolidates near $75,000 rather than trending sharply.
Token developments and market signals
Uniswap V4’s total value locked appeared to surge more than 350% in a single day, driven by apparent inflows on BNB Chain. However, this spike was later traced to distorted data from the Humanity Protocol’s hacked H token, which was minted in unlimited supply and inflated liquidity metrics without representing real capital inflows.
Separately, behavioral analytics firm Santiment said market conditions are now in a historic “buy zone” based on 30-day MVRV data. The metric shows recent buyers are underwater across major assets, including bitcoin (-10%), ether (-12%), XRP (-8%), and cardano (-18%). Santiment categorized most of these as “fair buy” conditions, with cardano flagged as a “strong buy.”
Meanwhile, MORPHO jumped 12% after onchain lending protocol Morpho raised $175 million in a major funding round co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Apollo and VanEck. The deal valued the protocol at up to $2 billion, though the token later gave back some of its gains.
