Bitcoin remained largely unchanged even after Strategy added to its holdings, as traders stayed cautious ahead of key U.S. inflation data and next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting.
The recent recovery in Bitcoin lost momentum on Tuesday despite Strategy (MSTR) increasing its position following a small sale at the end of May.
BTC was trading near $62,600, nearly flat compared with Monday. This followed a 4% rebound on Sunday that briefly pushed prices above $64,000 on several exchanges, including Coinbase.
Strategy—the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder—said on Monday it had purchased 1,550 BTC for $101 million, raising its total holdings to 845,256 BTC. Although this was far larger than the 32 BTC it sold in late May, the move did not have any meaningful impact on price action.
Bitcoin’s stagnation also weighed on broader crypto sentiment. The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index declined 1.8% over 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 80 Index fell 1.3%.
Market tone remains risk-averse, with investors showing little appetite to chase upside moves.
Daniel Reis-Faria, CEO of ZeroStack, noted that while Bitcoin is still seeing dip-buying interest, conviction levels are weaker than earlier in the year.
He added that despite attention on Strategy’s accumulation, macroeconomic factors are driving market direction. Inflation readings and interest rate expectations ahead of the upcoming FOMC meeting are now the key forces shaping risk appetite across all asset classes, including crypto.
Derivatives market activity
Crypto futures volume slipped 1.3% to $190.7 billion in the past 24 hours, while open interest remained steady near $103 billion. Liquidations dropped 48% to $301 million, suggesting much of the excess leverage has already been cleared from the system.
Zcash was a standout in derivatives trading. Open interest rose around 5% to 2.47 million tokens, its highest level since late May, as prices recovered from below $300 to roughly $472.
Its 24-hour cumulative volume delta turned positive, indicating aggressive buying through market orders. However, deeply negative funding rates near -45% suggest short positions still dominate, increasing the risk of a squeeze if prices continue higher.
Open interest in Worldcoin remains close to record levels, pointing to crowded positioning and elevated volatility risk. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and Ether open interest are broadly unchanged from earlier in the week.
Across major cryptocurrencies, negative volume trends indicate that sellers continue to dominate overall price action.
Volatility measures such as BVIV and EVIV are easing from recent highs, suggesting panic is fading. However, elevated short-term implied volatility shows traders are still preparing for Wednesday’s U.S. CPI release.
On Deribit, the $60,000 put remains one of the most actively traded options, with markets still skewed toward downside protection. BTC puts continue to trade at a premium over calls, reflecting lingering concerns about potential downside risk.
Token market developments
Humanity Protocol’s H token plunged more than 80% after attackers compromised private keys belonging to a foundation member and drained over $32 million across roughly 17 wallets. Losses are still unfolding.
The token fell from about $0.67 to around $0.13, briefly touching $0.05 at its lowest point, marking an intraday drop of nearly 90%.
The attacker has continued dumping stolen tokens for Ether and has also minted an additional 100 million H on BNB Chain, worth about $11 million, raising the risk of further downside pressure.
Humanity Protocol, which focuses on palm-based identity verification and competes with Worldcoin, has urged users to avoid interacting with its bridge and liquidity pools while investigations continue.
The incident reflects a broader 2026 trend of attackers targeting private keys rather than exploiting smart contract vulnerabilities. Similar cases include Drift Protocol losing around $285 million after an admin key compromise and Kelp DAO suffering roughly $292 million in losses through a validator bridge exploit.
Sahara AI’s SAHARA token also saw steep losses, falling about 60% to roughly $0.016, near its all-time low of $0.01355. Trading volume surged to around $215 million against a market cap of roughly $49 million, indicating heavy capitulation.
Unlike Humanity Protocol, Sahara AI said its contracts were not compromised and attributed the decline to a scheduled transfer of 600 million tokens via its Chainlink cross-chain bridge. It also confirmed that team and investor allocations remain secure on-chain.
SAHARA is now down roughly 75% since launching in June 2025.
