Bitcoin retreats from monthly high as Iran attacks U.S. bases and profit-taking sets in

The crypto market is facing a wave of sell pressure with bitcoin BTC$64,102.07 and ether (ETH) losing 1.1% and 1.7%, respectively, since midnight UTC.

The shift to the downside comes after bitcoin rose to a monthly high of $65,500 on Wednesday, prompting some traders to take profits.

Altcoins PUMP and ZEC also declined, falling 4.4% each after Tuesday’s strong rallies faded, highlighting a lack of liquidity in both directions.

U.S. equities also lost ground. Futures on tech stock-dominant Nasdaq 100 index retreated by 0.25%, extending a downtrend that began 30 days ago.

One of the main catalysts for price action across all asset classes is the war in Middle East, with Iran launching attacks on U.S. military bases in neighboring Gulf states on Thursday and the U.S. continuing its wave of airstrikes.

Derivatives positioning

• Ether’s price has dropped by 1.7% since midnight UTC, slightly more than the decline in bitcoin. ETH’s underperformance seems driven by bullish plays unwinding rather than aggressive new short selling. That’s evident from the decline in open interest (OI) to 14.35 million ETH from the five-week high of 14.45 million ETH hit Wednesday. Futures tied to BTC show similar dynamics.
• Meanwhile, OI in XRP rose to a 10-day high of 2.21 billion XRP alongside a 0.6% drop in the spot price. This combination is taken to represent a growing bias for bearish exposure, although XRP’s positive funding rates contradict that interpretation. That said, the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) for XRP is negative, meaning short plays are being executed at market orders rather than passive limit orders.
• Another notable open interest gainer is SUI, the native token of the Sui blockchain. Positions have increased by 15%, although the total OI of 654 million tokens remains in line with levels seen earlier this week. The SUI token has dropped almost 2% over 24 hours.
• Broadly speaking, most coins, except BTC, ETH and XMR, have a negative 24 hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), a sign of bears leading the price action.
• Bitcoin’s 30-day implied or expected volatility index is up 2% at 38%. Volatility tends to be mean-reverting, and, historically, sub-40% readings have consistently presaged renewed market turbulence.
• In Deribit-listed options, there has been a notable rise in both trading volume and open interest in BTC calls at $70,000 and $72,000 strikes. This likely reflects a large bull call spread that crossed the tape recently. The strategy bets that prices will rally to $72,000 by the end of July.
• In ETH’s case, the end-July expiry call at the $2,300 strike is the most traded bet of the past 24 hours. A call represents a bullish bet on the market.

Token talk

• Artificial intelligence token MORPHO$2.1115 defied bearish crypto price action on Thursday, rising by 3.5% since midnight as it looks to test the $2.20 level of resistance, which caused a rejection and subsequent drop to $1.85 on July 2.
• The rest of the altcoin market tracked bitcoin and ether, with coins including HYPE, SOL and ENA losing 1.3%-1.8% since midnight while NEAR, JUP and DASH posted steeper losses.
• CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is still range-bound, currently at 48/100 after losing its perch at 58/100 on Monday as investors switched focus back to bitcoin.
• One recent area of interest in the altcoin sphere has been memecoins, notably tokens launched on Robinhood’s new blockchain. One, cashcat (CASHCAT), rose from relative obscurity to a $220 million market cap in its first week of Robinhood Chain going live. It has since fallen back to a $91 million market cap despite maintaining around $60 million in daily trading volume.