Cryptocurrency markets are struggling to maintain positive momentum, with just five assets among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization gaining at least 1% over the past 24 hours. The narrow group of outperformers reflects the widespread selling pressure affecting digital assets.
Arbitrum (ARB), Render (RNDR), Pepe (PEPE), Quant (QNT) and GateToken (GT) were the only five cryptocurrencies to record gains of 1% or more. In contrast, leading assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP and Solana (SOL) remained under pressure, while only a few tokens managed to avoid losses.
The market downturn comes as investors prepare for further weakness in technology stocks. Nvidia (NVDA), the dominant player in the AI chip industry and the largest publicly traded company by market value, was already down more than 4% in premarket trading.
The decline followed controversy surrounding CEO Jensen Huang, who reportedly acknowledged an affair with a woman suspected by U.S. officials of having connections to Chinese intelligence. Nvidia’s board has since initiated an independent investigation into the matter.
Crypto Derivatives Show Rising Selling Pressure
Futures volume rebounds sharply: Cryptocurrency futures trading activity increased more than 200% to $180 billion over 24 hours as market participation recovered from the weekend slowdown.
Despite the surge in trading volume, aggregate open interest declined 3% to approximately $127 billion. The decrease suggests that traders were closing existing positions and withdrawing exposure rather than establishing substantial new bets.
Total liquidations reached roughly $1.1 billion, while the taker buy-sell ratio stood at 51.5% on the selling side, indicating that market orders were slightly tilted toward sellers.
Bitcoin derivatives retain a bullish bias: Bitcoin’s futures open interest slipped just 0.2%, even as its market price declined 2.2%. The relatively limited contraction in open interest suggests that derivatives exposure remained comparatively stable during the price correction.
BTC liquidations totaled approximately $305 million. Funding rates stayed above zero but declined from Thursday’s levels, indicating that long traders continued paying short-position holders, although the bullish premium had weakened.
Ether funding turns bearish: Ethereum experienced a more pronounced reduction in futures exposure, with open interest falling 6.7% while its price declined 5.9%.
ETH liquidations reached approximately $498 million, substantially exceeding Bitcoin’s total despite Ethereum having only around half as much open interest.
The funding rate also shifted into negative territory after remaining positive on Thursday. This change indicates that short traders are now paying long-position holders, reflecting a shift in derivatives market positioning.
Zcash and XRP record significant open interest declines: Capital withdrawals were also visible across major altcoin derivatives markets.
Zcash (ZEC) futures open interest contracted 9.7% against a 4.5% price decline. XRP open interest dropped 9.2%, while its price declined 6.5%.
The sharper contraction in open interest compared with price movements points toward traders reducing their positions and pulling capital out of these markets.
Nvidia-linked perpetual trading activity jumps: Binance-listed NVDA perpetual futures recorded a trading volume increase of more than 200%, surpassing $500 million.
The increase in activity followed the controversy surrounding Jensen Huang and Nvidia’s decision to investigate the allegations.
Options traders prepare for greater price swings: Bitcoin’s one-week implied volatility climbed to approximately 43%, compared with 33% on Thursday. Ethereum’s implied volatility also increased, reaching around 60% from 46%.
The options skew moved higher for both assets, signaling stronger demand for downside protection.
Bitcoin’s one-week skew increased to approximately 13% from 2%, while Ether’s rose to 15% from 7%. These changes indicate that traders are willing to pay a larger premium for put options that protect against potential price declines.
Bitcoin put options attract greater demand: Four of the six most actively traded Bitcoin options contracts were puts, with strike prices concentrated between $70,000 and $72,000.
Ethereum’s options market showed a more balanced distribution, with three call contracts and three put contracts among its six most active positions. The most actively traded ETH contract was a December put option with a $1,900 strike price.
Major Cryptocurrency Tokens Face Continued Weakness
Ethereum struggles below its 200-day moving average: Ether declined approximately 5.9% to $2,100 after finishing Sunday’s trading session below its 200-day moving average for the first time since August 18.
The decline coincided with substantial derivatives liquidations. ETH accounted for approximately $501 million of the $1.16 billion in cryptocurrency positions liquidated over the previous 24 hours, with bullish traders bearing most of the losses.
XRP ranks among the weakest major altcoins: XRP recorded a decline of approximately 7.3%, placing it among the poorest performers across leading alternative cryptocurrencies as the broader market correction intensified.
Payment-related tokens suffer the largest sector decline: Payment-focused cryptocurrencies experienced the heaviest losses, falling more than 5% as a group.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens declined approximately 3.5%, while memecoins lost 2.35%. Layer-two cryptocurrencies demonstrated greater resilience, recording a relatively small decline of just 0.12%.
Arbitrum gains despite widespread market weakness: ARB moved in the opposite direction, rising more than 5% over the past 24 hours.
Growing on-chain activity related to real-world asset (RWA) transactions has supported the token’s performance, allowing it to outperform most major cryptocurrencies during the latest market downturn.
