Bitcoin has fallen more than 15% this week and briefly slipped towards $61,000, yet Standard Chartered has kept its year-end price target at $100,000 and said the current decline may offer a buying opportunity.

According to a note sent to clients on June 4, Standard Chartered believes the factors behind the latest selloff are starting to fade even as some market participants continue to warn of deeper losses.

The bank’s global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, said Bitcoin’s bottom is “nearly in place” after a sharp correction driven by spot ETF outflows, forced liquidations, and concerns surrounding Strategy’s recent Bitcoin sale.

At the time of the note, Bitcoin (BTC) had recovered from its intraday lows and was trading around the mid-$60,000 range. Despite the rebound, the cryptocurrency remains roughly 30% lower for the year.

Kendrick told clients that investors may ultimately view current prices as an attractive entry point when looking back from the end of 2026, when Standard Chartered expects Bitcoin to trade near $100,000.

Strategy buying remains a key bullish factor

One reason behind the bank’s optimism centers on Strategy’s history of returning to the market after selling Bitcoin.

Earlier this week, the company disclosed the sale of 32 BTC worth approximately $2.5 million to meet preferred stock distribution obligations. The transaction attracted attention because Strategy, led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, has spent years promoting a long-term accumulation strategy.

Even so, Kendrick noted that the company previously sold Bitcoin in 2022 before increasing its holdings shortly afterward. Based on that pattern, he expects Strategy to resume what he described as aggressive Bitcoin purchases.

While the sale contributed to negative sentiment across crypto markets, Standard Chartered argued that the market reaction may have overstated its significance.

Another factor supporting the bank’s outlook is the resilience of spot Bitcoin ETF demand. According to Kendrick, cumulative net inflows since the launch of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs remain around $54.2 billion. Holdings have declined modestly from a peak near 682,000 BTC to roughly 674,000 BTC, but the bank said the overall trend has remained relatively stable.

Liquidation pressure appears less severe

Beyond ETF flows and corporate buying, Standard Chartered pointed to derivatives positioning as another reason for caution against overly bearish forecasts.

The bank noted that roughly $1.5 billion in leveraged Bitcoin futures positions were liquidated during the recent downturn. Kendrick said this figure is comparable to liquidation events seen during previous corrections and remains below levels associated with some of the market’s most severe crashes.

Recent comments from the bank have not been limited to Bitcoin. Last week, Kendrick compared Ethereum’s current weakness to Amazon’s experience during the collapse of the dot-com bubble, arguing that token prices do not always move in line with underlying network progress.

Standard Chartered maintained its Ethereum targets of $4,000 by the end of 2026 and $40,000 by 2030.

Meanwhile, the bank has continued expanding its presence in the digital asset sector. As reported by crypto.news earlier, Coinbase recently broadened its partnership with Standard Chartered, adding institutional funding support for the Australian dollar, Singapore dollar, Canadian dollar, and Swiss franc, while also providing GSIB-backed settlement services for euro and pound transactions across Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Exchange.

According to Coinbase, the arrangement is intended to help institutional clients move capital more efficiently across trading and financing activities.

Crypto has become a key payment rail for a fast-growing gray-market peptide trade, according to a new Chainalysis report.

Chainalysis said Thursday that off-label peptide sales have climbed past a $100 million annual run rate, as online wellness trends and demand for cheaper compounds push buyers toward overseas suppliers. The blockchain analytics firm said first-quarter sales in 2026 reached $32 million, up 159% from $12 million in the prior quarter.

The report linked the surge to rising public interest in peptides, which are protein building blocks used across health, fitness, and wellness markets. Chainalysis said the success of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy helped bring related products into mainstream online discussion, even as many buyers turned to unregulated alternatives.

Crypto becomes payment backbone

According to Chainalysis, traditional banks and card processors often restrict transactions tied to prescription-grade compounds and unregulated substances. As a result, the firm said many vendors have adopted cryptocurrency to handle payments outside normal financial channels.

Chainalysis described the peptide trade as a “gray market” served by overseas suppliers that sell raw and unbranded products directly to consumers. The firm said Chinese chemical manufacturers now account for much of the supply, partly because some sellers face limits in traditional banking systems.

In its report, Chainalysis said top vendors have developed a more organized approach to crypto payments. The firm found that suppliers often use bitcoin and stablecoins, while larger vendors show a stronger preference for stablecoins.

Stablecoins dominate larger orders

Among vendors receiving average deposits of $1,000 or more, Chainalysis said stablecoins made up most of the payment mix. The firm said this pattern may help sellers reduce exposure to Bitcoin’s price swings when handling larger supply orders.

The report also compared the peptide market with other research-chemical networks that have used crypto for online sales. Chainalysis said some suppliers connected to fentanyl precursor sales appear to have moved into peptides or added them to existing operations.

One example cited by Chainalysis was Shanghai Sigma Audley. The firm said the supplier, which it linked to suspected transnational drug networks, had received at least $1 million in bitcoin and $3.59 million in stablecoins from fentanyl precursor sales before expanding into peptides.

Testing spend falls per buyer

Chainalysis also raised concerns about product safety. The firm said many wallets that bought peptides from China previously sent funds to Janoshik, a Czech company that provides independent chemical purity testing.

However, Chainalysis said testing spend per buyer has dropped sharply as the market has grown. The report estimated that average testing spend fell 88% to about $8 per buyer, even though Janoshik is testing more products overall because the number of buyers has increased.

The report said the peptide sector often reaches people with limited experience in both cryptocurrency and unregulated pharmaceuticals. Chainalysis said this creates added risk for buyers who may not understand product quality concerns, payment traceability, or the legal limits around these substances.

Coinbase has launched pre-intial public offering (IPO) markets, starting with SpaceX, offering users outside the United States exposure to private companies before they list publicly via a perpetual futures contract tied to the company’s estimated pre-listing price.

The product is a USDC-settled perpetual futures contract that tracks SpaceX’s pre-IPO valuation. It allows 24/7 trading with no expiry or rollover, with profits and losses settled in USDC, according to a company blog post Thursday.

Coinbase said the positions can be opened and closed at any time, similar to existing perpetual futures contracts on the platform. Upon a future IPO, positions will automatically transition into a post-IPO perpetual futures contract referencing the public listing.

The offering is not available to US persons at launch and is initially rolling out to “eligible users in supported jurisdictions outside the United States,” reflecting restrictions on offering private market securities exposure in the country.

Coinbase said the product is intended to expand access to private market exposure, which has traditionally been limited to venture capital firms and institutional investors, with SpaceX serving as the initial listing due to strong global demand for exposure to Elon Musk’s space and satellite company.

Pre-IPO perpetual futures launch on Coinbase. Source Coinbase

Cointelegraph reached out to Coinbase for comment, but did not receive a response by publication.

Crypto exchanges race to offer pre-IPO exposure

The launch comes amid intensifying competition among crypto exchanges to bring private market exposure into tokenized or synthetic form. Kraken’s parent company, Payward, announced a similar initiative Wednesday, offering tokenized access to pre-IPO companies.

Related: Coinbase invests in ProShares ETF tailored for stablecoin reserve assets

Binance also launched derivative products linked to high-profile private firms, including SpaceX, in May, while in April, Bitget launched IPO Prime, a platform for pre-IPO investment products, starting with a SpaceX-linked offering.

The broader push coincides with accelerating interest in tokenized real-world assets. Research from Bernstein released May 26 estimated the RWA market has grown to $51 billion, expanding 42% this year as investors seek fractional exposure to traditionally illiquid private assets.

A separate Bitget Wallet report, published May 26, found tokenized stocks still make up a low-single-digit share of the RWA market, with most activity clustered in a few big-tech names such as Tesla, Alphabet and Microsoft trading on offshore platforms.

SpaceX remains one of the most closely watched private companies globally, with valuations in recent private market and institutional estimates reaching as high as $1.75 trillion, depending on methodology and secondary market pricing.

Magazine: How to fix suspected insider trading on Polymarket and Kalshi

Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings fell deep into paper-loss territory as BTC traded below the company’s average purchase price, renewing scrutiny of Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury model.

Strategy holds 843,706 Bitcoin (BTC) acquired at an average price of $75,699 per coin, with a total cost basis of $63.8 billion. However, the latest Bitcoin downturn sank the value of Strategy’s Bitcoin reserve to $52.6 billion, pushing its unrealized loss to $11.2 billion, according to the company’s dashboard.

Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC, has also declined below its intended $100 value and is traded at $94.6 at the time of writing. Strategy’s (MSTR) stock price was down 1.5% in pre-market trading to $124.7 on Thursday, Yahoo Finance data shows.

The paper loss adds to scrutiny of Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury model as BTC trades below the company’s average acquisition price, while the downturn in STRC price could complicate future preferred-stock issuance to fund its Bitcoin acquisitions. It comes days after Strategy announced the sale of 32 BTC, its first sale since 2022.

Strategy dashboard with key metrics on its Bitcoin reserve. Source: Strategy.com

Saylor pushed back on the bearish read Thursday, saying that mounting exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows are “pressuring BTC,” and capital markets have poured $400 billion into AI infrastructure over the past six months.

“This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity,” said Saylor in an X post.

Source: Michael Saylor

Bitcoin’s price is down around 4.7% in the past 24 hours and 13.8% in the past week. The cryptocurrency traded at $63,157 at the time of writing, down over 20% in the past month, according to TradingView. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have logged $4.4 billion in outflows in the past 13 trading days, Cointelegraph reported earlier on Thursday.

BTC/USD, 1-month chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Some market watchers said the STRC move was not unusual.

“STRC’s $100 par value is not a price floor. It’s the stated value used for liquidation preference and certain redemption provisions,” wrote popular investor and podcast host Scott Melker, adding:

“A 5% discount to par is not evidence that something is broken. It’s evidence that investors are demanding a higher yield, pricing risk, or reacting to market conditions – exactly what preferred stocks do.”

Others were less optimistic. Gold bug and long-time Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff said that the lower the STRC price falls, the higher MSTR will be forced to increase dividend payments to “bring the share price back up to $100,” which means that “MSTR will run out of cash much sooner, pulling forward Bitcoin sales to fund payments.”

Related: Capital B seeks $122B funding mandate to buy more Bitcoin

Standard Chartered says Bitcoin bottom near, depending on Strategy’s next move

Despite the sell-off, Standard Chartered predicted that the Bitcoin market bottom may be near, depending on Strategy’s next purchase.

“I would see it as a tentative sign the low has been printed, and given that logic, suspect selling over the weekend will be muted,” said Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered.

Kendrick said a purchase of 320 BTC or 3,200 BTC, equal to 10 times or 100 times the recent sale, could signal a market bottom.

Following Strategy’s prior tax-loss sale of 704 BTC in 2022, the company purchased 810 BTC just two days later.

Magazine: Bitcoin ETFs bleed $1B, Aave’s $71M ETH unfreeze bid delayed: Hodler’s Digest, May 10 – 16 

Fundamental backdrop

In April 2026, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent prices to their highest levels per barrel since 2022. However, diplomatic developments reversed the market’s direction: by the end of May, prices had fallen by around 19% — the worst monthly performance since the pandemic — amid ceasefire negotiations between the United States and Iran. Additional pressure came from OPEC+’s decision to increase production by 188,000 barrels per day in June.

The market remains cautious. Even if an agreement is reached, analysts continue to point to persistent risks for tanker traffic through the strait. US labour market data due on 5 June may also influence expectations regarding future energy demand.

Technical picture

On the four-hour chart of Brent Crude Oil (XBRUSD on FXOpen), a short-term downtrend remains in place, having developed following the market reversal on 30 April and originating from the 114.5 area. In late May, the price tested the 93 region, which coincided with the green support level, before staging a recovery. The market is now attempting to break above the descending trendline and is testing the upper boundary of the current profile at 99.600 as support.

The profile spans the range between 95.400 and 99.600. The point of control (POC) is located in the 96.950–97.150 area — the price zone that attracted the highest concentration of trading activity during the reversal phase. The 101.800 area may act as the nearest resistance level; if prices remain above the profile, this level could become a key focus for market participants. Should the market fall back below 99.600, the POC may provide support for another attempt to move higher.

The RSI and its moving averages currently stand at 57, 55 and 49. The indicator remains above both moving averages, while their positive slope suggests strengthening short-term bullish momentum.

Key takeaways

The main factor likely to determine Brent’s direction in the coming weeks remains the progress of US-Iran negotiations. Any indication of delays or a breakdown in talks could reintroduce a geopolitical risk premium into prices. From a technical perspective, the market is approaching a decision point: the outcome of the current attempt to break the descending trendline may determine the next short-term direction of Brent prices.

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The amount of bitcoin BTC$63,729.63 supply in loss reached a key bear-market threshold, surpassing 10 million BTC, more than half of the total in circulation.

According to Glassnode data, at a one-hour resolution, the number peaked at about 10.5 million BTC as the price fell to as low as $61,300 on Thursday. Total circulating supply is roughly 20 million BTC, so more than half of all coins are currently held at an unrealized loss.

At the same time, supply in profit has declined to around 9.8 million BTC. This is the first time during the current market cycle that the amount of bitcoin held at a loss has exceeded the amount held in profit.

Historically, this transition has occurred only during deep bear-market conditions, and it has often coincided with major market bottoms.

Previous cycles provide some context.

During the 2015 bear market, supply in loss and supply in profit remained near equilibrium for almost a year before the market recovered. In 2019, the period lasted roughly six months. The Covid-driven capitulation in March 2020 was shorter, lasting around one month, and the 2022 bear market saw this condition persist for about six months.

The takeaway is that while this signal has historically aligned with bear-market lows, the duration of these periods has varied significantly, making it difficult to estimate how long bitcoin could remain at depressed levels.

Adding to the significance of the recent decline, bitcoin touched its 200-week moving average of around $61,300. The measure is a long-term trend indicator that calculates bitcoin’s average price over the previous 200 weeks. It has historically acted as a major support level during every bear market cycle.

Should bitcoin drop below the psychologically important $60,000 level, the next major support zone is around $54,000, which corresponds to the realized price. The realized price represents the average acquisition cost of all bitcoin in circulation based on the price at which each coin last moved onchain. Bitcoin has traded below its Realized Price during every major bear market.

Maelstrom, the investment firm led by Arthur Hayes, argues that Worldcoin’s WLD token could surge to as much as $5 in the coming months, framing WLD as a clean proxy for the AI mega IPO wave. The note positions the token as a relatively overlooked lever in a market that is increasingly pricing in AI-driven growth and corporate AI infrastructure shifts.

“The AI mega IPOs are coming — and it appears the market has overlooked one of the cleanest proxies,” said Lukas Ruppert, a Maelstrom researcher, on Wednesday.

The AI boom has been accelerating in the United States. OpenAI confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the SEC on May 22, targeting a public debut in September 2026, with the firm aiming to raise $60 billion and a potential valuation of up to $1 trillion. Meanwhile, Anthropic confidentially filed its draft prospectus after announcing on May 28 that it was valued at $965 billion following a fresh $65 billion funding round. US stock markets have risen this week, aided by AI‑related gains in memory storage and chipmakers as well as broader tech sentiment.

Ruppert argues that this AI fervor has not yet fully reflected in WLD’s price, even as near-term developments around Worldcoin and its token dynamics could tilt sentiment. He points to two potential catalysts that could reverse the current overhang and tilt WLD higher.

Key takeaways

• The Maelstrom view casts WLD as a high‑conviction proxy for upcoming AI mega IPOs, with a price target around $5 in the near term.
• Two catalysts could spark a rally: a substantial WLD bid by Eightco ORBS and a meaningful improvement in the token’s unlock schedule.
• Eightco ORBS, a small publicly traded company, reportedly holds about 283 million WLD and sits on roughly $144 million in cash, which could be deployed to buy more WLD and potentially trigger a price reflexive move.
• Worldcoin’s token unlock framework is set to ease selling pressure by about 43% on July 24, potentially removing a key overhang for the token.

Worldcoin and the AI IPO frame

Worldcoin positions itself as a project intended to create a global digital identity and financial network capable of distinguishing real humans from AI bots. Co‑founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the project has attracted mainstream attention as the AI ecosystem expands beyond pure software into identity, verification, and on-chain participation use cases.

Against a backdrop of heavyweight AI funding rounds and planned public listings, WLD has traded in a risk‑premium corridor. Ruppert notes that capital is increasingly chasing exposure to AI leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, whose valuations are in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, while WLD’s currently unlocked market cap sits at what he sees as a much smaller, “asymmetric upside” opportunity around $2 billion.

As a gauge of momentum, WLD has been among the stronger performers within the top‑100 crypto assets by market cap, rallying roughly 60% over the past week in market activity tracked by price feeds such as TradingView.

Catalysts to watch for a WLD rally

The two primary catalysts outlined by Maelstrom centre on supply dynamics and capital allocation flow.

First, Eightco ORBS — a small publicly traded company that has accumulated a sizable stash of Worldcoin tokens — reportedly holds about 283 million WLD and has around $144 million in cash on its balance sheet. Ruppert suggests that if Eightco deploys a portion of that cash to buy additional WLD, it could ignite a reflexive price loop, where rising demand from a buyer with large holdings pushes the price higher and draws in more buyers.

Second, Worldcoin’s unlock schedule is set to tighten the flow of new tokens into the market. Beginning on July 24, the daily unlocks are expected to fall by roughly 43%, a move that could meaningfully reduce near‑term selling pressure and support price stability or upside in the weeks ahead.

Ruppert frames these dynamics within a broader investor context: “Capital is aggressively chasing Anthropic and OpenAI exposure,” and while AI valuations sit in the hundreds of billions or trillions, WLD’s market exposure is comparatively modest. If buyers step in and selling pressure eases, the upside could be outsized relative to the token’s current liquidity profile.

From a price action perspective, Maelstrom’s note argues that WLD tends to move decisively when it moves at all. The firm projects a path to $5 by August, representing roughly a fivefold increase from a current price around $0.50 and implying a substantial, if volatile, upside against an otherwise cautious backdrop for smaller cap crypto assets.

These views come as Worldcoin remains a controversial and closely watched project within the broader AI economy, where investors weigh the potential utility of global identity networks against regulatory and privacy considerations, as well as the practical challenges of mass adoption.

Market context and what it could mean for investors

The AI rally has spilled over into equity markets and crypto alike, with AI‑driven earnings and investment narratives shaping sentiment across tech sectors. While OpenAI and Anthropic are poised to shape the AI software and services landscape, Worldcoin’s broader ambition sits at the intersection of identity verification and decentralized finance, a combination that could unlock novel on‑chain participation if consumer trust and data privacy concerns are addressed effectively.

For traders and long‑term holders, the key will be watching how any large corporate purchasing of WLD, particularly by Eightco ORBS or similar entities, interacts with the token’s unlocking cadence and market liquidity. The July 24 unlock reduction is a tangible near‑term event to monitor, as it could alter the supply‑demand balance in a market that has shown sensitivity to token flow dynamics.

As the AI IPO narrative evolves, investors may increasingly treat WLD as a test case for how digital identity and tokenized access could intersect with mainstream AI monetization. If the catalysts highlighted by Maelstrom begin to take hold, WLD could emerge from a low‑volatility phase into a more responsive trading regime, though both upside potential and downside risk remain highly contingent on broader regulatory, technological, and market developments.

What to watch next: the pace of private and strategic purchases in WLD, any shifts in Eightco ORBS’ capital deployment, and the actual timing and impact of the Worldcoin unlock changes going into late summer. These elements will shape whether the $5 target remains plausible or if the market requires a longer runway to assess Worldcoin’s role in the AI economy.

TRON revenue and XRP catalysts draw attention as investors compare opportunities across major crypto projects.

Tron news today is centered on one of the most impressive revenue figures in the blockchain space, $604 million in network revenue, putting TRX firmly back in the institutional conversation. 

The XRP price prediction for June 2026, meanwhile, is defined by a symmetrical triangle breakdown, oversold RSI readings, and a market waiting on the CLARITY Act to deliver the catalyst XRP has been promised all year. Both projects have fundamentals worth respecting. But when the question is which of the top crypto coins is offering a genuinely asymmetric, structured, and frictionless opportunity right now, the answer is not TRX or XRP. It is BlockDAG, with a Legacy Sale that has eliminated every barrier between a buyer and a defined, published profit structure.

Top crypto coins conversations always circle back to the same question: where is the entry that actually changes things? BlockDAG’s Legacy Sale answers it directly. No transfers. No caps. No excuses.

BlockDAG legacy sale now open: The entry that needs no catalyst

While Tron news today rewards patience and the XRP price prediction waits on Washington, BlockDAG’s Legacy Sale is doing something neither of those top crypto coins can offer: delivering a completely defined, completely frictionless opportunity with a published entry and a published exit. Buy BDAG at $0.00000044. Register directly from your dashboard. No transfers required, no complicated claim process, no withdrawal caps throttling your returns. Participate in the Buyback Program at $0.001. Walk away with uncapped daily sell limits and full control of your position from start to finish.

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This is what separates BlockDAG from every other entry in the top crypto coins conversation. The Legacy Sale does not ask anyone to trust a roadmap. It does not ask to wait for a Senate vote or hope a technical pattern resolves correctly. It gives a number, $0.00000044 in, $0.001 on the buyback, backed by a live ecosystem that is generating real activity right now. 

On top of that, The BlockDAG Casino is also live, driving on-chain demand through continuous wagering volume. BDUSD, the native beta stablecoin, is operational: deposit BDAG, mint BDUSD, use it across supported flows, repay and withdraw. Miners are deploying. The mainnet is processing. Every layer of the ecosystem is moving, and the Legacy Sale sits at the center of all of it.

Tron News Today: Revenue giant, incremental upside

Tron news today is anchored by a number that demands attention: $604 million in network revenue, cementing TRON’s position as one of the highest-earning blockchains in the world. USDT-on-TRON remains the world’s most-used stablecoin route, and the network is actively building toward its next phase, a quantum-resistant mainnet upgrade with a testnet expected in Q2 2026, a $1 billion AI fund targeting on-chain AI infrastructure, and the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act receiving Justin Sun’s public backing following its Senate Banking Committee vote in May 2026. Anchorage Digital has also integrated TRON custody, enabling US institutional investors to hold and trade TRX in a compliant, regulated environment.

Tron news today paints the picture of a mature, revenue-generating network with strong stablecoin dominance and growing institutional legitimacy. But maturity has a price. TRX trades at $0.34, and its upside trajectory, forecast between $0.35 and $0.57 through the second half of 2026, reflects a project consolidating its position rather than breaking new ground. Tron news today is good. It is not transformative.

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XRP price prediction: Waiting on a catalyst

The XRP price prediction for June 2026 is caught in a structural bind. XRP is trading near $1.26, below its 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day moving averages, with RSI at 27.55, firmly in oversold territory, and a symmetrical triangle pattern that has tested the upper trendline multiple times since March without breaking through. The CLARITY Act is the single most important variable in the XRP price prediction right now. The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14, rallied XRP above $1.55, then watched it fade back down. The White House has set a July 4 target, and until that legislative clock delivers, the XRP price prediction base case remains a sideways range of $1.26 to $1.46.

The XRP price prediction bull case has genuine substance, ETF inflows are holding, RLUSD is growing as a native stablecoin, and XRPL transaction volume is climbing. But the XRP price prediction requires legislative timing, macro cooperation, and a short squeeze to fire simultaneously. Credible thesis. Uncertain timeline.

The final take

For more information, visit the official website, presale, and follow the latest updates on Telegram and Discord.

The crypto market succumbed to a wave of selling pressure and liquidations on Thursday, with bitcoin BTC$63,729.63 tumbling to around $61,300 at 02:00 UTC before recovering to as high as $64,680. It recently traded around $62,500.

Ether (ETH) lost 3% since midnight UTC, now trading at around $1,750. Several other altcoins saw deeper declines, with NEAR, ZEC and JUP all losing more than 13%.

The downside move triggered a wave of liquidations with $1.7 billion worth of futures positions being forcibly closed due to the slide, $750 million worth of that can be attributed to bitcoin, $390 million to ether.

Investors appear to be deserting crypto to pursue the AI narrative in traditional markets, exacerbating the geopolitical uncertainty and a fundamentally broken market structure that has failed to recover from October’s leverage wipeout.

Derivatives positioning

• Total 24-hour futures volume rose 2.9% to $305 billion, an increase that reflects elevated but not panicked activity. More telling is open interest, which declined 8.5% to $111.4 billion, a sign that leveraged positions are being unwound rather than fresh bets being added.
• Liquidations have been severe: Roughly $3 billion in leveraged positions have been wiped out over the past two days, with the 24-hour tally alone reaching $1.7 billion.
• Bitcoin’s open interest has pulled back to 766,000 BTC from yesterday’s record highs above 800,000 BTC. The decline suggests the price plunge has flushed out a significant portion of leveraged longs and that bears are not aggressively building new directional bets, at least not in BTC. The same dynamic holds for ether (ETH) and XRP.
• Solana is a notable exception. Open interest in SOL surged to a record 72.16 million tokens even as prices declined, a combination that typically signals an influx of short positions. The sentiment is understandable given SOL dropped below its February low while BTC, ETH and XRP held above theirs.
• TRX and ADA are also seeing open interest rise as their prices fall, suggesting similar short-side accumulation in those markets.
• Derivatives’ broader tone confirms the bearish tilt. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta across the top 20 tokens is negative, meaning traders are selling at market prices rather than limit orders. This active, aggressive bearish participation suggests potential for deeper losses.
• Implied volatility is rising in tandem. Volmex’s 30-day implied volatility indexes for bitcoin (BVIV) and ether (EVIV) have surged over the past three sessions, reflecting growing demand for options-based hedging and heightened expectations of continued price swings.
• Put skews have strengthened in both bitcoin and ether, signaling that investors are willing to pay a premium for downside protection. The $60,000 strike put on Deribit carries over $1 billion in notional open interest. As spot prices approach that strike, large position adjustments become increasingly likely, which could amplify volatility.
• The $55,000 put was the most actively traded options contract in the past 24 hours. The message from derivatives markets is unambiguous: Sentiment is bearish.

Token talk

• The altcoin market underperformed crypto majors on Thursday. Even recent darling HYPE lost 12% after hitting a record high earlier this week.
• DASH, ENA and FET also fell by more than 10% since midnight UTC as the lack of liquidity in altcoin pairs reared its head again.
• Market depth is typically much lower on altcoin pairs than on bitcoin or ether, so the amount of capital it takes to move prices in either direction is relatively low. Pair that with a wave of liquidations and the asset simply can’t maintain the level of supply, causing exaggerated price moves to the downside.
• Monero (XMR), despite being down by 4% since midnight, is still in the black over 24 hours. Trading at $347, it is seemingly unperturbed by the broader market crash.
• Much of the altcoin trajectory will depend on bitcoin’s ability to hold above $60,000. A break below that could trigger further liquidations, which would weigh more on the illiquid altcoin pairs.