Bitcoin traded near $76,500 after falling more than 1% since midnight UTC, extending its seven-day decline to roughly 3%. The move came as intensified U.S. strikes on Iranian targets pushed global markets into a more defensive stance.

Brent crude rose above $93 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate moved toward $90 as tensions escalated. The Dollar Index also edged higher, gaining 0.13% since midnight.

Higher oil prices raised concerns about renewed inflationary pressure, helping push the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield toward 4.8%. Equity futures weakened as well, with Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.31% and S&P 500 futures lower by 0.11%.

Derivatives Point to Growing Bearish Pressure

Crypto derivatives indicators are showing a shift toward sellers, although bitcoin’s leverage remains relatively subdued.

CoinGlass data showed the 24-hour long-short taker ratio turning bearish, with short trades accounting for 51.5% of the flow. The change followed several days of neutral readings. Meanwhile, total crypto trading volume rose 19% to $203 billion over 24 hours, while open interest stayed close to $136 billion for a second consecutive session.

Bitcoin futures open interest held steady near 700,000 BTC. The lack of an increase suggests traders have not significantly increased leveraged short exposure despite the price decline. Current OI remains well below the year’s high of 801,000 BTC.

Ether is displaying a more bearish setup. ETH declined while futures open interest increased slightly, a pattern often associated with new short positions. Open interest reached 13.72 million tokens, its highest level since Aug. 18, although still below the record 15.68 million reached in May.

Cumulative volume delta readings for BTC and ETH also show sellers dominating market orders. Negative CVD indicates that short-side trades are being executed aggressively at market prices rather than through passive limit orders. The trend is visible across most major tokens, with UNI as the notable exception.

UNI Defies the Broader Weakness

Uniswap’s UNI continued to gain, rising another 4% in 24 hours to a seven-month high of $6.37. Futures open interest reached a record 89.44 million tokens, providing additional confirmation of the spot-market rally.

Funding rates remain below 10% on an annualized basis, suggesting bullish positioning has not yet reached levels typically associated with excessive leverage and the risk of a sharp long squeeze.

Tron is in the opposite position. TRX funding rates remained around minus 85% for a second straight day, signaling unusually crowded short positioning.

Volatility measures have meanwhile cooled. The 30-day implied volatility indexes for BTC and ETH have reversed their mid-August increase, indicating expectations for a calmer market.

Options activity is more cautious. On Deribit, the $70,000 BTC put expiring Sept. 25 was the most traded bitcoin contract over the past 24 hours. Still, four of the other five highest-volume BTC contracts were calls.

Ether options were more defensive, with the $2,200 put expiring Sept. 11 leading volume and most of the remaining top-five contracts also being puts. Traders can use puts to hedge downside exposure or speculate on a decline.

Altcoin Performance Splits

ETHFI was among the market’s stronger performers, rising 4.63% since midnight to approximately 58.9 cents.

Monero gained 2.27% to around $516, extending its move from $464 a week ago. XMR has remained relatively insulated from broader crypto-market volatility and has been one of the more consistent gainers over the past two weeks.

Zcash added 1% to $824.63 and is now up 71.23% over the past month.

ARB also extended its recent surge, climbing 9.33% over 24 hours to 11.68 cents. The rally has been supported by revenue from Robinhood Chain continuing to flow into the Arbitrum DAO treasury.

Among decliners, DASH fell 4.72% to $41.82, PUMP dropped 3.54% to 0.4223 cents and NEAR slipped 2.29% to $1.8429. XRP declined 1.72% to $1.3281, taking its seven-day loss to 6.22%.