Bitcoin holds above $80,000 as Asian stock rout drags altcoins lower

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Key takeaways

Crypto futures liquidations jumped to nearly $1 billion following a hotter U.S. inflation report.
Ether saw heavier long liquidations than bitcoin amid Asian stock market pressure.
Trading volume surged 61% to $252 billion while open interest held steady at $139.6 billion.

Liquidations and market pressure

Liquidations jumped to nearly $1 billion after a hot inflation print: Nearly $1 billion in crypto futures bets were liquidated over 24 hours as the market wilted after Wednesday's hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation report, up from about $136 million a day earlier. The spike shows how crowded positioning was heading into the data.

Ether took a heavier hit than bitcoin: ETH saw more liquidations than bitcoin. Longs worth $200 million were liquidated in ether, significantly more than the $115 million in bitcoin. The difference points to heavier long leverage in ether.

Silver outranked a top privacy coin on liquidations: XAG (silver) perpetual futures have seen more liquidations than zcash (ZEC), one of the top privacy coins in a sign of the growing popularity of TradFi assets on crypto platforms.

Trading volume and open interest

Trading surged while open interest held steady: 24-hour crypto futures volume is $252 billion, up 61% over the period, while open interest (OI) is largely unchanged at $139.6 billion. That means the activity was mostly existing positions being closed or churned, not a big new leverage build. The taker long/short volume ratio is again skewed bearish, with shorts accounting for 51.67% of the flow, little changed from 52% a day earlier.

Traders are adding to bitcoin positions as the price falls: BTC's spot price is down over 2% in 24 hours, but notional futures OI is up 1.6%. Because OI is measured in dollars, that implies the number of contracts rose by roughly 3.7%, so net new capital is entering during the drop. The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative, alongside negative readings for most coins, so the new money looks more like shorts. OI doesn't show direction, however. BTC's perpetual funding rate is still positive, so longs are still paying to hold.

Ether and solana show a similar setup: ETH and SOL futures OI have held largely steady despite bigger spot price drops than bitcoin. Flat dollar OI amid falling prices implies the number of contracts rose by about the size of the price drop, another sign of fresh positions. Both also have negative CVDs and still-positive funding rates.

DOGE and NEAR are being de-risked: Their OI drops are far bigger than their spot price declines, which means traders are closing positions and capital is leaving, not just marking down.

Volatility and options flow

Bitcoin's implied volatility is holding above 40%: The BVIV index is just above 40% for the second straight day, up from recent lows near 34%. The increase shows renewed demand for options, which remain well short of the panic highs seen in February and June. Ether's volatility index shows a similar pattern.

Options flow is two-way in bitcoin and defensive in ether: On Deribit, BTC calls at the $90K and $86K strikes top the 24-hour options volume rankings, while the other three in the top five are puts. Calls above the market point to bets on a rebound, and the puts point to hedging. In ETH's case, puts top the list.

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