Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin slides as Asia-led sell-off hits altcoins

Bitcoin $BTC$92,070.19 and the wider crypto market succumbed to a wave of selling pressure during the Asia session, prompting a drop to about $91,530 at 10:00 a.m. UTC from around a local high of $93,750 at midnight.

The sell-off follows a failed attempt at breaking above $94,500 on Tuesday, the third in the past five weeks.

The altcoin market fared worse than bitcoin, with PENGU and $XRP taking the brunt of the hit with declines of 6.5% and 3.5% since midnight.

Bitcoin is now trading firmly back in December's range, which saw various spikes between $85,000 and $94,500, even as it extended the decline that started in October.

Wednesday's drop reflects a rise in risk-off sentiment from traders. U.S. equities also fell in pre-market trading, with the Nadsaq 100 futures trading 0.32% lower since midnight.

Derivatives positioning

• Exchanges have liquidated crypto futures bets worth $465 million over the past 24 hours, with longs accounting for over 50% of the tally. This is in stark contrast to the pasta two days, when shorts faced the brunt of liquidations.
• Still, cumulative open interest (OI) in crypto futures listed worldwide remains steady above $143 billion, the highest in nearly two months, with moderately positive funding rates indicating a bullish positioning.
• OI in $XRP, DOGE, SUI and $ZEC fell 5%-6%. This is likely linked to profit-taking following recent price surges in these tokens.
• CME's $BTC futures show signs of green shoots, with OI rising from 100K $BTC to 111K $BTC since Dec. 30. Still, overall positioning remains light compared with a year ago, when OI stood at above 191K $BTC.
• On Deribit, put skews for $BTC and $ETH continue to weaken, although bullishness is yet to emerge.
• $BTC block flows show a mixed profile, with strangles suggesting a bullish volatility bias and call spreads indicating upside price expectations. In $ETH's case, straddle, also a volatility strategy, was the most preferred play.

Token talk

• Memecoins and privacy coins were Wednesday's two worst performing sectors, with zcash $ZEC$490.67 leading the privacy plight, dropping by 4.5% since midnight UTC.
• CoinDesk's Memecoin Index (CDMEME) fell 1.5%, about twice as much as the CoinDesk 5 index, which measures the price of $BTC, $ETH, $XRP, SOL and ADA.
• One glimmer of hope for the altcoin market is the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, with total value locked (TVL) across the entire ecosystem rising by 0.17% over the past 24 hours despite assets moving to the downside, suggesting positive inflows, according to DefiLlama.
• CoinMarketCap's "altcoin season" indicator is at 25/100, down slightly from last week's high of 27 but considerably above December's low of 14, suggesting signs of optimism in the altcoin market.
• One outlier from the move to the downside was TRX$0.2951, which remains in the black since midnight to add to a 1.2% gain over the past 24 hours.