Bitcoin and ether were steady in subdued trading on Tuesday as thin liquidity continued to cap price moves, while strength in gold and silver signaled a broader shift toward defensive positioning.

Crypto markets stayed range-bound amid muted participation. Bitcoin’s 24-hour trading volume dropped 25% to $35 billion, while ether turnover declined 21% to $24.6 billion, underscoring the lack of conviction among traders.

Soft price action reflects fading volatility and waning engagement across digital assets, even as precious metals attract strong inflows. Gold hovered near $5,085 after setting multiple record highs over the past week, while silver has rallied more than 57% year-to-date as investors gravitate toward traditional safe havens.

The metals rotation is especially visible on derivatives platform HyperLiquid, where daily silver futures volume is approaching $1 billion — trailing only bitcoin and ether. Funding rates, however, remain skewed negative, suggesting traders are increasingly fading the rally rather than positioning for continued upside.

Macro uncertainty continues to weigh on sentiment. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced fresh 25% tariffs on South Korea, following a political dispute with the European Union over Greenland last week, reinforcing a risk-off backdrop.

Derivatives

More than $270 million in leveraged crypto futures positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with short positions accounting for the bulk of losses. Traders had been positioned for a deeper pullback after bitcoin’s 7% slide last week but were caught off guard by the rebound from around $86,000 to nearly $88,000.

Volmex’s 30-day implied volatility measures for bitcoin and ether remain near multi-month lows, signaling limited stress in options markets despite bearish technical indicators and weak flows.

Open interest in futures tied to HyperLiquid’s HYPE token jumped 30% to more than 57 million HYPE, close to December’s record high of 57.44 million. The decentralized exchange is said to have regained market share from rivals Aster and Lighter.

Futures open interest in ether, solana, XRP and dogecoin rose between 2% and 3%, while bitcoin open interest was largely unchanged. Annualized perpetual funding rates across major tokens remain modestly positive, pointing to a mild bullish tilt, though TRX and DOGE funding rates have flipped negative, indicating growing short interest.

On Deribit, BTC and ETH put options continue to command premiums over calls, reflecting persistent downside caution. Some traders note that demand for downside protection has become crowded, leaving calls relatively cheap for those positioning for upside. Bearish strategies — including put spreads, volatility trades, straddles and strangles — made up nearly half of all BTC block trades over the past 24 hours, while ETH traders favored iron condors, consistent with expectations for continued range-bound trading.

Token Talk

Strong turnover in silver futures helped lift HyperLiquid’s HYPE token more than 22% over the past 24 hours, with trading volume more than doubling to $510 million.

Privacy-focused tokens zcash (ZEC) and monero (XMR) gained 4% and 3%, respectively, since midnight UTC, outperforming bitcoin and major altcoins such as ether, XRP and solana, which fell between 0.4% and 1%.

Pump.fun’s native PUMP token climbed 14.5% over the same period as traders continued to seek opportunities in the memecoin segment despite broader market stagnation. January trading volume on Pump.fun has already exceeded $10 billion — the platform’s strongest month since June — with four days remaining, according to DefiLlama.

Meanwhile, the bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) is little changed year-to-date, while the altcoin-weighted CoinDesk 80 Index (CD80) is up 3.6%.

If you want this tightened further, rewritten as a straight wire, or reframed for a morning or Asia-close brief, I can keep iterating.