coindesk.com 
Bitcoin fell to its lowest level since April 13 on Thursday as U.S. airstrikes in the Strait of Hormuz dashed ceasefire hopes and sent a chill through risk assets globally.
The largest cryptocurrency is currently trading near $73,400, down around 1.2% since midnight but above the day's low it hit around 6:30 UTC. Ether ($ETH), meanwhile, slipped below $2,000 for the first time since March 29, shedding 1.5%.
The immediate catalyst was a spike in oil prices. Crude jumped to $96 a barrel from $92 before settling at $94 during the European morning, a move that stoked fresh inflation concerns across markets.
U.S. equity index futures are also feeling the pressure, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 derivatives down 0.11% and 0.25%, respectively, reinforcing the broadly risk-off tone heading into the American session.
Derivatives positioning
- Liquidations totaled $958.8 million over the past 24 hours, with longs accounting for $897 million versus just $61 million in shorts. The lopsided wipeout tracks a market grinding lower rather than a sharp two-way flush.
- Bitcoin open interest barely moved, but the flat overall reading masks a 9.85% drop in CME open interest to $7.56 billion. Regulated futures are coming off while offshore perps hold steady and, with funding neutral at 0.0058%, nobody is chasing the move with leverage.
- Ether open interest climbed to a record 16.39 million $ETH ($32.61 billion), up 0.61% over 24 hours, even as the token slipped below $2,000. Open interest rising while the price falls points to traders adding shorts in anticipation of deeper losses rather than buying the dip.
- Open interest for $XRP fell 0.49% to 2.28 billion $XRP ($2.94 billion) as the token's price softened. The simultaneous decline reads as bullish bets closing out rather than new shorts opening. Perpetual funding on $XRP and SOL also turned negative across nearly every venue, with shorts paying longs on Binance at -0.0123% and -0.0161%, and Gate the lone positive outlier, a sign traders are leaning short the majors.
- About $8 billion in options expires on Deribit on Friday, $6.5 billion in bitcoin (roughly 86,000 contracts) and $1.4 billion in ether. Max pain for bitcoin sits at $75,000, just above spot price, with $375 million in put notional clustered at that strike and $640 million in open interest stacked at the $80,000 resistance line that marks the 200-day moving average.
- Deribit's DVOL volatility index sits near 36, the eighth percentile of the past year, while ether volatility is at its first percentile and the lowest since early 2024. Still, the 25-delta put-call skew is elevated at +12.3% on the one-week and +10.3% on the one-month for bitcoin, so traders are paying up for immediate downside protection even with headline volatility crushed.
Token talk
- The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) fell 2.9% after midnight UTC on Thursday as the broader altcoin market suffered from bitcoin and ether's relative weakness.
- A lack of liquidity across several altcoin pairs led to exaggerated moves. Humanity protocol (H) tumbled by more than 30% at 21:45 UTC on Wednesday before almost instantly snapping back. It has jumped 26% since midnight UTC.
- These selloffs typically wipe all resting orders off the orderbook, leaving a void for traders to capitalize on while bids and asks slowly begin to repopulate.
- It was also a rough morning for AI tokens RENDER and FET, down by 5.5% and 8.5%, respectively. DeFi tokens JUP and ETHFI also lost around 5%.
- CoinMarketCap's "Altcoin Season" indicator plummeted to its lowest level in more than 90 days. It currently sits at 30/100, reflecting broader risk-off sentiment.
