coindesk.com
Bitcoin $BTC$64,347.45 is trading around $64,000, having lost 0.5% since midnight UTC. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been stuck between $61,500 and $66,900 since July 8, with volatility hitting multi-year lows.
The main driver of price action is the surge in global bond yields. The U.S. 30-year Treasury briefly hit 5.333%, its highest in nearly two decades, Japan’s 10-year yield climbed to a 30-year high, Germany’s 30-year bund hit levels last seen in 2011 and France’s equivalents touched highs going back to 2008.
The slide in bond prices, which move in the opposite direction to yields, came as the Nasdaq 100 index dropped 1.3% on Tuesday, its steepest single-session decline since early August, while the S&P 500 posted its third straight daily loss. Futures for both indexes have steadied since midnight.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last interest-rate decision meeting will be released later Wednesday, potentially giving an indication of the direction for U.S. monetary policy after officials voted to keep rates steady in a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, despite three of the 12 voters wanting to increase.
Derivatives positioning
- The long-short taker ratio remains marginally bullish across all timeframes up to four hours, with longs holding around 51% of flow, according to CoinGlass. On the daily timeframe, the ratio flips slightly bearish at 50.21% in favor of shorts, suggesting overnight positioning is less decisive than intraday flow.
- $BTC open interest (OI) has drifted lower to $21.8 billion, down from the $23 billion peak seen around Aug. 11. The decline, alongside range-bound price action, suggests positioning is being unwound rather than built, consistent with a market waiting for a catalyst.
- Funding rates remain just about positive across major venues, with $BTC's OI-weighted rate at 0.0049% and $ETH at 0.0022%. Rates are far from the elevated levels that would signal overleveraged longs, keeping the risk of a funding-driven squeeze low.
- The largest single liquidation in the past 24 hours was a $23.35 million $BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid. Total 24-hour liquidations stand at $190.24 million, with shorts accounting for $113.27 million of the total.
- $ETH dominates the liquidation heatmap over the past four hours at $5.35 million, with short-side concentration suggesting some forced covering rather than fresh long exposure being added.
- The $BTC futures basis is broadly positive but modest, with Aug. 28 contracts showing an annualized basis of around 12% and the Sept. 25 Deribit contract at 7.12%, indicating the market is pricing in modest upside without excessive optimism.
- On Deribit, short-dated implied volatility sits at 20.4% for the Aug. 20 expiry, with the expected price move priced at roughly plus or minus $656. Options activity is concentrated around the $64,000 to $65,000 strike range, suggesting the market sees little reason to price in a large directional move ahead of today's Fed minutes.
Token talk
- ENA has gained 2.99% since midnight to $0.0852, making it one of the strongest performers of the day after a week of underperformance.
- LINK added 1.82% to $9.70, continuing to hold the gains from Standard Chartered's bullish forecast last month and outperforming most of the mid-cap DeFi names.
- NEAR rose 1.76% to $1.615, one of a handful of AI-adjacent tokens finding buyers on Wednesday after a rough stretch through mid-August.
- PUMP is down 3.23% since midnight at $0.002998, giving back the bulk of Monday's 7.8% spike as momentum fades.
- CoinMarketCaps “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 44/100, holding firm since a dip to 37/100 on Aug. 7.