Bitcoin slips under $61,500 and breaks 200-week SMA as futures shorts build into CPI
BTC futures open interest rose to 728,000 BTC as funding and CVD stayed negative and Deribit puts priced richer than calls.
Bitcoin fell back under $61,500 ahead of the U.S. CPI release due later Wednesday and traded below its 200-week simple moving average. Derivatives and options markets showed traders leaning into downside exposure, while an apparent Uniswap v4 TVL surge was traced to hacked-token dashboard inflation rather than real inflows.
Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin retraced below $61,500 after a Sunday bounce above $64,000 on some exchanges and traded under its 200-week simple moving average.
- Zcash and Hyperliquid’s HYPE each dropped more than 10% in 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index fell 3% alongside broad altcoin weakness.
- Futures activity stayed heavy with $193 billion in volume and $418 million in liquidations, with more than $300 million coming from long positions.
- Uniswap v4 TVL appeared to jump over 350%, but the move was linked to hacked Humanity Protocol H tokens inflating dashboard values, not fresh deposits.
Bitcoin Breaks the 200-Week SMA Into CPI Risk
Bitcoin traded back under $61,500 as markets leaned defensive ahead of the U.S. CPI print due later Wednesday. The move nearly unwound a Sunday bounce that pushed prices above $64,000 on some exchanges, and it put BTC below its 200-week simple moving average, a long-horizon level many desks treat as a regime line.
Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, tied the level to bear-market duration risk. “The history of the 200-week moving average over the last 11 years (prior to this, the market had not dipped below it) shows that the average time spent near it is almost 11 months, suggesting a very long bear market,” he said.
The timing matters. The packet frames CPI expectations as a potential three-year high above 4% for May, which is exactly the kind of macro event that tends to punish crowded risk positioning and thin out liquidity as traders wait for the number.
Altcoin Tape: ZEC and HYPE Lead a Broad Risk-Off Move
The selloff was not isolated to bitcoin. Zcash (ZEC) and Hyperliquid’s HYPE each fell more than 10% over 24 hours, while ADA, ONDO, and BCH dropped more than 4% in the same window. The CoinDesk 20 Index declined 3%, consistent with a broad risk-off tape rather than a single-token idiosyncratic move.
There was one notable pocket of strength. Morpho’s token (MORPHO) jumped 12% in 24 hours after the protocol raised $175 million in a token purchase valuing the protocol at up to $2 billion, co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit Capital with backers including Apollo and VanEck. The token later gave back some gains, which fits the broader pattern of rallies struggling to stick in a defensive market.
Futures Positioning Turns Heavier: OI, Funding, CVD and Liquidations
Derivatives data pointed to positioning pressure, not just spot selling. Aggregate crypto futures volume rose 1.2% to $193 billion over 24 hours while open interest fell 1.5% to $102.27 billion, and liquidations jumped 38% to $418 million. More than $300 million of that liquidation total came from longs, a mix that can mechanically accelerate downside when bids thin out ahead of macro risk.
At the bitcoin-specific level, futures open interest increased to 728,000 BTC from 712,000 BTC even as price fell. Rising OI into a decline is consistent with new positions being added on the way down, and the packet’s read is that this reflected fresh short exposure.
That interpretation was reinforced by negative perpetual funding rates and negative OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) across most major coins, including ETH and XRP. XMR was cited as the lone exception with narrowly positive 24-hour CVD. When funding and CVD skew negative at the same time, it typically signals that sellers are the aggressors and are paying less, or even being paid, to hold that stance.
Options markets echoed the hedging tone. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index rose to 51.21% from 45.8% on Monday, and ETH implied volatility also ticked higher. On Deribit, short-term puts on BTC and ETH held a notable premium over calls, consistent with traders paying up for downside protection into CPI rather than expressing upside conviction.
Separately, a headline-grabbing DeFi metric proved noisy. Uniswap v4 TVL appeared to surge more than 350% in a day, with DefiLlama showing roughly $2 billion of apparent inflows concentrated on BNB Chain. The packet attributes the spike to hacked Humanity Protocol H tokens minted in unlimited supply, which sat in a BNB Chain pool and inflated dashboard dollar values rather than representing real deposits. DefiLlama’s founder was contacted for confirmation, but no response was included.
Santiment, a behavioral analytics platform, argued the drawdown has pushed majors into a “historic buy zone” using 30-day MVRV. It showed typical recent buyers underwater by BTC -10%, ETH -12%, LINK -9%, XRP -8%, and ADA about -18%, tagging the first four as “fair buy” and ADA as “strong buy.” That framing can coexist with bearish derivatives positioning, but it does not remove the near-term constraint that heavy short exposure can cap bounces until it clears.
Post-CPI Tells to Track: OI Direction, Funding Flip, and Vol Compression
The immediate catalyst is the CPI release later Wednesday and whether BTC can reclaim the 200-week SMA quickly or continues trading below it.
Positioning is the second lever. If BTC futures open interest keeps rising from the cited 728,000 BTC while price stays heavy, it suggests shorts are still being added. A post-print drop in OI would look more like a position unwind, which can change the character of any rebound.
Perpetual funding rates and 24-hour CVD across majors are the cleanest real-time sentiment tells. A shift from broadly negative readings toward neutral or positive would signal that aggressive selling is fading.
Options will show whether the market relaxes after the event. Watch Deribit skew for puts versus calls and whether implied volatility, with BTC 30-day IV at 51.21%, compresses once CPI uncertainty is resolved.
When OI Rises Into a Breakdown, I Treat Bounces as Fragile Until Positioning Clears
I don’t treat a break of the 200-week SMA as magic on its own, but the context matters here. BTC slipped under the level while futures OI rose to 728,000 BTC and funding and CVD stayed negative across majors, which is a positioning-led setup that can keep rallies capped even if spot sellers pause.
The threshold that matters is whether CPI triggers a reset in leverage. If open interest starts falling and funding normalizes while BTC reclaims the 200-week SMA, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven. If OI keeps building into weakness and puts stay bid on Deribit, this looks more like a sentiment catalyst than a fundamental shift, and the practical impact is continued difficulty sustaining bounces until the short and forced-long-deleveraging overhang clears.
