The cryptocurrency market remained under pressure ahead of critical inflation data set to be released in the United States today. Expectations that living costs in May would surpass 4 percent—the highest level in three years—have dampened risk appetite among investors. In this tense climate, Bitcoin fell below the 61,500 dollar mark, wiping out much of the gains that briefly lifted it above 64,000 dollars on some exchanges over the weekend.
Technical outlook for Bitcoin weakens
One of the focal points in the market has been Bitcoin dropping below its much-watched 200 week simple moving average—a level widely considered pivotal for long-term trend analysis. Alex Kuptsikevich, Chief Market Analyst at FxPro, highlighted that over the past eleven years, Bitcoin has spent an average of nearly eleven months near this moving average, a signal that could point to a prolonged bear market.
According to FxPro’s Chief Analyst Alex Kuptsikevich, Bitcoin has historically hovered around its 200 week moving average for an average of eleven months over the last eleven years, suggesting the potential onset of an extended bear market.
On the derivatives front, total trading volume in the past 24 hours increased by 1.2 percent to reach 193 billion dollars. However, aggregate open interest dropped 1.5 percent to 102.27 billion dollars. Liquidations surged by 38 percent, hitting 418 million dollars—over 300 million dollars of which came from long positions. Bitcoin’s slide back toward the 61,000 dollar level has intensified pressure on bullish bets.
Meanwhile, open interest in Bitcoin futures has risen from 712,000 BTC to 728,000 BTC—even as prices fell. Analysts interpret this as an indication of new short positions being established, reflecting wider anticipation of continued downside risk.
Bearish sentiment dominates derivatives markets
This outlook is echoed by persistently negative funding rates in perpetual contracts and muted growth in the 24 hour cumulative trading volume adjusted for open interest. These signals point to sellers aggressively hitting buy orders in the market, instead of waiting passively for buyers. Similar trends have been seen in Solana, Ether, and XRP. Solana’s open interest in perpetual futures climbed to 69.58 million tokens, nearing the June 5 peak of 71.57 million, but both funding rates and trading volumes remain subdued.
A cautious mood was also visible in the options market. Bitcoin’s 30 day implied volatility index jumped from 45.8 percent on Monday to 51.21 percent, matched by a parallel increase for ETH. In the Deribit options market, short term downside protective options are in much higher demand compared to bullish call options.
Quick glossary: Implied volatility reflects the market’s forecast for future price swings, as indicated by option prices. Deribit is one of the most widely used derivative platforms in the crypto sector.
Uniswap V4 surge driven by technical anomaly
DeFi markets caught brief attention when Uniswap V4’s total value locked (TVL) seemed to skyrocket by over 350 percent in a single day, signaling an inflow of nearly 2 billion dollars. Most of this activity was concentrated on BNB Chain. At first sight, it looked like a major liquidity migration, yet later analysis revealed a different story.
According to CoinDesk, the surge was not due to real capital inflows. The day before, unlimited minting in the H token of the Humanity Protocol—which had recently suffered a security breach—flooded a liquidity pool on BNB Chain with worthless tokens. This distorted TVL dashboards by inflating dollar values, without representing genuine deposits.
Bargain zones debated as market slides
Behavioral analytics firm Santiment reported that the widespread selloff has historically brought prices into zones considered attractive for buying. As a platform tracking both on chain and market sentiment, Santiment’s data shows the average 30 day MVRV indicates investors who bought Bitcoin in the past month are down 10 percent, ETH holders are down 12 percent, Chainlink investors saw a 9 percent loss, XRP investors are 8 percent down, and Cardano holders face losses of about 18 percent. The firm classified Bitcoin, Ether, Chainlink, and XRP as “reasonable buys,” and Cardano as a “strong buy.”
Elsewhere, an on chain lending protocol surged 12 percent in the last 24 hours following a 175 million dollar funding round. Heavyweights Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit Capital led the round, joined by Apollo and VanEck. The token purchase agreement values the protocol at up to 2 billion dollars. Some of the token price gains, however, were subsequently pared back.
