Today's Edition
(BLOOMBERG)
Bitcoin failed to match the strength of Monday’s stock market rebound, extending a stretch of weak trading that’s left bullish sentiment in short supply.
While equities pushed higher to start the week, the cryptocurrency stayed range-bound, struggling to shake off last week’s losses.
After regaining some ground over the weekend, the original cryptocurrency fell as much as 3.1% to dip below $86,000 on Monday, before paring the loss to trade little changed. Other smaller, more volatile tokens increased, with XRP jumping about 5% and Solana about 2.5% higher.
While Bitcoin’s price is higher than the Friday lows of $80,553, traders see little cause for celebration. The wider crypto market is in a pronounced slump despite surging institutional adoption and a series of policy wins pushed in the US.
"The lack of a broader ‘alt season’ in crypto and waning liquidity and underperformance relative to equity markets has made it more difficult to deploy meaningful capital into liquid strategies purely in crypto markets,” said Shiliang Tang, managing director of Monarq Asset Management.
In the crypto options market, traders are building downside protection at lower levels even with Bitcoin prices having seen a slight rebound in the last 24 hours. Demand for put options at the strike of $80,000 has surpassed those at $85,000, becoming the most popular contracts, according to Coinbase-owned crypto exchange Deribit.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin funding rate - a key measure of crypto market sentiment - has turned negative in the last few days, according to CryptoQuant, meaning there is more demand for bearish bets in the perpetual futures market than bullish positions. That figure had been persistently positive even amid the market rout in recent weeks. The flip points to signs of deepening slump in digital assets as more traders bet against the largest cryptocurrency.
Without a turnaround, November will become Bitcoin’s worst month since a string of corporate collapses rocked the crypto market in 2022, a wipeout that culminated in the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.
Despite a weekend rebound, Bitcoin remains about 30% below its record high last month, and it’s unclear how long the recovery will hold without stronger tailwinds. Open interest in perpetual futures has yet to bounce back, lingering 36% below its October peak of $94 billion.
Investors have withdrawn more than $3.5 billion from a group of US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, vehicles that have emerged as a major driver of the token’s price since their debut. A sustained reversal of those outflows has yet to emerge.
A recovery may also be restrained by the pressure on investors who entered the market at higher levels. Realised losses among short-term holders - wallets that have held Bitcoin for less than 155 days - have climbed to $630 million per day, the highest since the June 2022 meltdown, according to Glassnode.
