Bitcoin falls below $90,000 as altcoins slide in thin trading: Crypto Markets Today

Bitcoin BTC$66,988.52 fell back below $90,000, dropping sharply from a local high of $91,570 at 01:15 UTC to trade at its lowest level in five days.

The drawdown follows a third failure to break through $94,500 after attempts on Dec. 4 and Dec. 10, with price action mirroring that of the past six weeks.

Bitcoin's trading range is now well defined between $85,000 and $94,500, with the zone providing some stability in recent weeks after prices tumbled on Oct. 6 from a record high of $126,220 to $80,600 by Nov. 21.

Altcoins underperformed on Thursday as privacy coin zcash ZEC$232.78 plunged by more than 16% between midnight UTC and 10:00. PUMP also suffered a double-digit decline over the same period.

U.S. equity index futures also fell. Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures are trading 0.27% and 0.29% lower, respectively, since midnight while the dollar index (DXY) continues its ascent. It has now risen by more than 1% since Dec. 24.

Derivatives positioning

• Over $400 million in leveraged crypto futures bets have been liquidated in 24 hours, with bullish bets accounting for most of the tally, a sign that the leverage was skewed bearish.
• Overall open interest (OI) in crypto futures has pulled back to $140 billion from more than $141 billion Wednesday, which was the highest in nearly two months.
• OI in bitcoin futures increased by 2% alongside positive funding rates. Some traders seem to be buying the price dip.
• OI in ETH, SOL, XRP, ZEC and SUI, in contrast, dropped, indicating capital outflows.
• Funding rates for most major cryptocurrencies, except BNB, remain positive, indicating dominance of bullish long positions. In altcoins, LINK, XLM, AVAX and CC stand out with negative rates.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, indicating persistent downside bias. The put bias, however, stands notably weakened in short-dated options compared with last month.
• Block flows show strong investor bias for volatility strategies such as straddles and strangles in both bitcoin and ether. Ether flows also featured put spreads.

Token talk

• Altcoins suffered one of the most grueling selloffs of recent weeks with ZEC, PUMP and DASH leading the way with drawdowns of above 10%.
• DeFi was the worst performing sector, according to CoinDesk Indices data, with the DeFi index (DFX) posting a loss of 3.12% since midnight, closely followed by the memecoin index (CDMEME), which fell 3.09%.
• The CoinDesk 20 dropped 2.23%, indicating larger market cap tokens fared better than the more speculative sectors.
• This can be attributed to a continued void in liquidity and market depth across the altcoin ecosystem following a liquidation cascade in early October that evaporated $19 billion worth of derivatives positions.
• The lack of liquidity was prevalent on Thursday as a $12 million long position was liquidated on zcash ZEC$232.78, causing exaggerated losses compared with the wider market as the order books lacked sufficient bids to absorb the position.
• ZEC faces uncertainty after members of its development team quit following a clash with a nonprofit organization created to support the network.
• CoinMarketCap's "altcoin season" indicator remains firmly in a bearish zone at 23/100, a far cry from in September when it topped 78/100.