Bitcoin hovers below $60,000 as crypto braces for a pivotal week

The crypto market enters the final stretch of the month in a perilous position with bitcoin BTC$59,790.28 still below $60,000 and ether (ETH) less than $1,600.

The bitcoin price has now lost more than 50% of its value since October's record high, with analysts suggesting that more downside is on the cards over the coming months.

On Monday, the largest cryptocurrency is marginally in the black, rising by 0.6% since midnight UTC to $59,800 despite the broader market structure and chart formation skewing bearish.

Solana (SOL) has recovered after tumbling to its lowest point since late 2023 early this month. It has advanced by more than 13% since Thursday and 2% since midnight.

U.S. equities rose overnight as Nasdaq 100 futures traded up 1% while S&P 500 futures added 0.75%. Both indexes remain in a downtrend since setting record highs on June 15.

Derivatives positioning

• Over $200 million in futures positions have been forcibly closed, or liquidated, by exchanges in the past 24 hours, with longs accounting for the bulk of the amount.
• There are signs of a turnaround over the past four hours: the nearly $20 million in liquidations included $13 million in shorts. That shows how BTC's bounce to $60,000 caught some bears off guard.
• BTC's futures market offers little excitement. Open interest (OI) is back in ranges seen earlier this month, erasing the minor pop to 775K BTC seen on Friday. Traders seem less willing to take on risk.
• The same is true for ether, where OI remains locked at around 14.2 million ETH.
• Open interest positioning in SOL feels relatively elevated at 72.70 million SOL, just short of the record high of over 76 million SOL set on June 24. That suggests potential for more volatility in Solana's native token.
• AVAX rose over 5% last week, decoupling from market leader BTC's weakness. But that hasn't been enough to draw traders into leveraged bets. OI continues to decline, standing at 38.07 million tokens, the lowest since April 1. That raises questions about the sustainability of the price gains.
• The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) remains bearish. Most top 25 tokens, except TRX, XMR and ZEC, show negative values, a sign that bears are leading price action by selling via market orders rather than limit orders.
• Volatility indexes, though, offer some good news. The BVIV, which tracks BTC's 30-day implied volatility, dropped 5% to 47% today, pausing its two-week upswing. That suggests a renewed bet on market calm, typically a feature of grinding upswings in spot prices.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias for puts, or downside protection. In BTC's case, the $60,000 put now has notional open interest of nearly $1 billion, almost rivaling the $1.11 billion sitting in the $80,000 call. These two have been the key option levels for at least two months. Should prices slide below $60,000, the next big options cluster is at $50,000, with notional OI of $712 million.
• Over the weekend, traders sold strangles in the July 10 expiry on HYPE options on the decentralized platform Derive, according to data tracked by Laevitas. Shorting a strangle is a bet on price consolidation.

Token talk

• The altcoin market is little changed, trading in line with the biggest cryptocurrencies as traders appear apathetic toward more speculative assets until bitcoin confirms its next move.
• Privacy coins dash (DASH) and zcash (ZEC) are up by more than 2% on Monday. The move comes after both assets lost between 18% and 30% in the past two weeks alone, suggesting it is more of a relief rally than a meaningful recovery.
• PUMP$0.001429 lost 1.5% since midnight, joining AI token FET in the red.
• CoinMarketCap's "Altcoin Season" indicator is at 49/100, a level it has held for most of June as investors focus on bitcoin's next move.