Bitcoin’s early-week rally faltered as heavy ETF outflows, aggressive derivatives deleveraging, and muted altcoin responses weighed on the broader crypto market. During the European morning session, Bitcoin (BTC) slid to $91,200, down from a weekly high of $94,200 hit on Wednesday.

The decline remained largely isolated to crypto markets, with U.S. equities holding steady in pre-market trading and the FTSE 100 rising 0.15%.

The sell-off is largely attributed to record outflows from BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF, with another $113 million withdrawn on Thursday, as crypto bulls struggled to reclaim market control from bears. Meanwhile, the Fear & Greed Index remains depressed at 25/100, failing to approach neutral territory after lingering below 40/100 for more than a month.

Derivatives positioning
The BTC futures market shows sustained caution and aggressive deleveraging. Open interest (OI) has declined to $21 billion from $25 billion a month ago, signaling reduced leverage and risk exposure. Market derivatives metrics remain low and stable: the three-month annualized basis sits at 4%-5%, and funding rates hover around 5%-6% at major venues, with no significant changes over the past month.

BTC options show a sustained bullish bias despite declining volatility. Short-term implied volatility (IV) has dropped, shifting from backwardation to more typical contango, suggesting lower expectations for immediate, extreme price moves. Nevertheless, call/put volume remains tilted toward bullish bets, with 24-hour call option volume at 57% of total options, and the one-week 25-delta skew has risen slightly to 8%, indicating traders are still paying a premium for short-term upside exposure.

Recent BTC price swings triggered $280 million in liquidations over 24 hours, with $200 million from long positions. ETH ($88 million) and BTC ($85 million) led in nominal liquidations.

Altcoin performance and key levels
The BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap on Binance shows heavy long liquidations around $90,600, according to Coinglass data—a critical level to watch if prices fall.

Altcoins struggled over the past 24 hours, with TAO, HYPE, and NEAR losing more than 6.5%. Ether (ETH) also gave back most of its gains following the Fusaka upgrade, declining 2.62% from its daily high at 03:00 UTC. ETH’s muted price action highlights that even anticipated bullish catalysts are largely being ignored by the market.

The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index mirrored ETH’s decline, while CDMEME, CoinDesk’s memecoin index, fell 5.8% in 24 hours. CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator remains stagnant at 21/100, suggesting traders favor Bitcoin and stablecoins amid a bearish backdrop.

Two exceptions stood out: Zcash (ZEC) at $339.73, up 4.7%, and TRX, Tron’s native token, up 1.8%. ZEC is rebounding after entering an oversold phase on the RSI, while TRX has posted gains across daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes, indicating relative strength amid a broader market pullback.