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Bitcoin has moved back above $68,000 as ETF outflows reached $6.8 billion, with funding rates turning positive. A breakthrough past $72,000 is necessary to validate a bullish transition.
Bitcoin rises from recent lows as altcoins show stronger performance (Indira Tjokorda/Unsplash modified by CoinDesk)
Key points:
- BTC has increased from $65,600, yet is still within a trend of lower highs and lower lows.
- A price point of $72,000 serves as a critical level to indicate a possible trend reversal.
- U.S. spot ETFs have experienced outflows totaling 100,300 BTC ($6.8 billion), while open interest climbs to $15.8 billion and funding rates have turned positive, indicating stabilizing leverage.
- Short-term options exhibit a heightened “panic premium,” with liquidations reaching $179 million, and altcoins outperforming as traders shift during consolidation.
The cryptocurrency market rebounded from potential downside on Thursday, with bitcoin increasing by 3.9% from a recent low of $65,600.
Prices rose overnight, with bitcoin gaining 2% since midnight UTC, solana (SOL) up 2.7%, and ether (ETH) climbing by 1.2%.
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The overall downtrend, however, remains in place, with bitcoin recording a series of lower lows and lower highs, erasing all the gains made in the 12 months leading up to October 2025.
In the near term, bitcoin must exceed $72,000 to confirm a bullish change from the price action characterized by fluctuating support and resistance levels.
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have registered their most significant drawdown of this cycle, with 100,300 BTC withdrawn since October. This translates to approximately $6.8 billion of additional selling pressure on a market that is already under strain.
Derivatives positioning:
- Market conditions are stabilizing. Open interest has risen to $15.8 billion, indicating a transition from leverage cleanup towards a more solid foundation, and retail sentiment is recovering, with funding rates shifting to flat or positive across all platforms, reaching 10% on Bybit and Hyperliquid.
- Institutional confidence remains steady, as the three-month annualized basis continues at 3%.
- The BTC options market reflects a slight change in sentiment, with 24-hour volume showing a 51/49 split in favor of calls.
- While the one-week 25-delta skew has increased to 17%, the implied volatility (IV) term structure remains in short-term backwardation.
- This ongoing front-end spike indicates that traders are still willing to pay a “panic premium” for immediate protection, even as longer-dated tenors stabilize around 49%.
- Coinglass data reveals $179 million in liquidations over 24 hours, with a 56-44 division between longs and shorts. BTC ($59 million), ETH ($46 million) and others ($16 million) were the top assets affected by liquidations.
- The Binance liquidation heatmap shows $68,400 as a critical liquidation level to watch during any price increases.
Token talk
- Altcoins showed vitality overnight, with the token MORPHO climbing more than 12% since midnight UTC and the AI payment token KITE increasing by 11%, extending its 30-day increase of 153%.
- DeFi tokens also experienced a rotation, with jupiter (JUP) rising over 3.6% after reaching its lowest level in seven days on Thursday.
- The CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Index (SCPXC) was the top-performing benchmark in the last 24 hours, achieving a gain of 2.25%, closely followed by CoinDesk’s Memecoin Index (CDMEME), which rose by 2.2% during the same timeframe.
- The bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 20 (CD20) increased by 1% as major cryptocurrencies registered more modest gains.
- Altcoins generally perform well during consolidation periods as traders can rotate funds into more speculative investments without the risk of missing movements in major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether, and XRP.
