Here is a smoother, rewritten version:
Bitcoin pulled back after reaching a two-week high of $64,500, as declining open interest and weak spot demand raised doubts about the strength of July’s 8.4% rally. The drop on Tuesday marked the first daily loss of the month, ending the longest winning streak since March.
Ether mirrored bitcoin’s move, slipping to $1,770 after peaking at $1,830 the previous day.
The July rebound has largely been fueled by a short squeeze that began forming in late June, when bearish positions remained elevated even as bitcoin hovered near its lowest levels of the year. As those shorts were unwound, prices rebounded from oversold conditions, pushing crypto assets higher since the start of the month.
Since July 1, the total cryptocurrency market has grown by 8.4%, reaching a valuation of $2.16 trillion.
Meanwhile, U.S. equity futures moved lower, with Nasdaq 100 contracts down 0.9% in early trading, extending the pullback from June’s record highs.
Derivatives positioning
Over the past 24 hours, more than $500 million in leveraged crypto futures positions have been liquidated, with bearish trades making up the bulk for the sixth straight day.
Despite bitcoin’s recent gains, futures open interest has declined to 740K BTC from 776K BTC earlier in the month. This suggests that derivatives traders are not fully supporting the rally, while weak spot demand—evident in ETF flows and the Coinbase premium—adds to concerns about sustainability.
A similar trend is visible in ether, which had recently outperformed bitcoin.
Solana’s open interest has also fallen, dropping to 68 million tokens from more than 76 million in late June, indicating that its recent 10% price increase has not attracted strong leveraged participation.
Canton Network’s CC token declined more than 4% in the last day, even as open interest rose 3% to 245.59 million tokens. Combined with negative funding rates and weak volume signals, this points to growing bearish sentiment.
Across the broader market, many tokens show negative open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta, suggesting sellers are becoming more aggressive—often a sign of potential downside risk.
Volatility and options
Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV) has risen to 40%, snapping a six-day decline, though it remains well below January’s highs near 60%, which may still support bullish sentiment. Ether’s volatility index shows a similar pattern.
Options activity on Deribit reflects mixed sentiment, with both calls and puts ranking among the most actively traded contracts, indicating uncertainty about near-term direction.
On decentralized exchange Derive, a large call condor strategy on HYPE suggests expectations for prices to remain range-bound between $75 and $80 through July 24.
Token trends
The altcoin market continues to show divergence. Tokens such as FET, KASPA, and WLD have declined despite the broader recovery, while ETHFI and LIT have gained more than 30% over the past week.
WLFI was among Tuesday’s top performers, rising 4.8%, though it remains down more than 89% since its launch last August.
This divergence highlights a maturing market, where individual token performance is increasingly driven by fundamentals and on-chain activity rather than broad market moves. Historically, altcoins tended to move in tandem.
CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index currently stands at 46 out of 100, below last week’s peak but higher than May levels, when it hovered around 30.
