Bitcoin stalls near $83,000 while lighter drops 17% on Robinhood perps plan

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Key takeaways

Market-wide leverage continues to cool with falling open interest and reduced liquidations.
Bitcoin's recent price rally remains primarily spot-driven rather than fueled by futures leverage.
HBAR experiences heavy short selling while speculative tokens like PUMP see rising leverage.

Market leverage and open interest

Leverage keeps cooling: The market-wide taker long/short volume ratio is balanced for a second day, after sellers had a slight edge two days ago at 46.9% to 53.1%. Liquidations roughly halved to $196 million from yesterday's $389 million. Open interest (OI) slipped to $147 billion from nearly $150 billion two days ago, and volume fell 16.9% to $181 billion, according to CoinGlass.

BTC's rally stays spot-driven: Futures OI dropped to 625K BTC, the lowest since Jan. 1, from 644K yesterday and 650K the day before. The decline began in June, even as the price climbed from $57,000 to over $80,000. That suggests spot buying, not leverage, powered the rally.

Binance traders stay bullish on BTC: The long/short ratio rose to 1.42 for retail and 1.49 for whale accounts, from 1.24 and 1.31 yesterday. Whale positions edged up to 1.90 from 1.88 but remain below the readings above 2.3 seen earlier this month. A reading above 1 means more longs than shorts.

Altcoin futures and speculative activity

Ether leverage keeps draining: ETH futures OI slid to about 13.08 million ETH, the lowest since early March. SOL and XRP futures show little activity, extending this week's quiet.

Speculation creeps back in: PUMP jumped nearly 16% in 24 hours, the best performer among the top 100 coins, and its futures OI is rising. That means fresh money is chasing the token with leverage. When this pattern shows up repeatedly in speculative tokens, it has tended to mark short-term market tops.

HBAR bears pile in: HBAR fell 16% in 24 hours, yet futures OI kept climbing to new highs. Funding rates have turned negative, from just above zero two days ago, pointing to a bias for shorts. Traders may be hedging long spot holdings against a deeper drop. HBAR's 24-hour OI-adjusted CVD is also the most negative among majors, showing aggressive selling.

POL and CAKE shorts crowd in: Both tokens show deeply negative funding rates, meaning short sellers are paying to keep their bets open. LIT sits at the opposite end, with strongly positive funding.

Volatility and options market trends

Volatility stays asleep: Bitcoin and ether's 30-day implied volatility indices remain calm, as they have all week. Traders still expect orderly markets, even as Treasury yields rise, the dollar strengthens and gold weakens.

Options traders chase both call and puts: BTC options volume on Deribit shows demand for both calls and puts, after yesterday's clear tilt toward calls. The $70,000 call was the most traded contract over 24 hours. In ETH, the $3,000 call is the most traded contract for a second straight day.

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