Bitcoin Falls After U.S. Inflation Data Fails to Lift Sentiment

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded consecutive daily outflows for the first time since late July, while Bitcoin erased its gains from the previous week and altcoins delivered mixed performance.

Bitcoin slipped below $63,000, falling 1.14% since midnight UTC as another day of ETF withdrawals and a lack of strong bullish catalysts weighed on the broader market.

According to SoSoValue, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $192 million in net outflows, marking the first two-day withdrawal streak since late July.

Bitcoin is now trading at its lowest level since Aug. 3 after giving back all of last week’s advance. Ether fell 0.73% over the same period, while some altcoins continued to outperform the major cryptocurrencies.

U.S. stocks, meanwhile, gained on Thursday after producer price inflation came in at 4.7%, below market expectations. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both advanced following the data, while futures for the two indexes remained slightly higher.

Derivatives Positioning

Futures activity remains choppy: Despite the broader market weakness, the long-short taker ratio remains relatively balanced, with long positions representing about half of futures flow. Trading volume over the past 24 hours is once again increasing much faster than open interest, pointing to active position turnover rather than significant new exposure.

Bitcoin Cash attracts fresh short positions: Bitcoin Cash recorded the largest increase in open interest among major tokens over the past 24 hours. OI climbed 10% to 1.64 million BCH as the token’s spot price fell 3%, suggesting traders are adding short exposure.

Deeply negative annualized funding rates reinforce the bearish interpretation. BCH’s 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta is also negative, indicating that sellers are using market orders more aggressively than buyers. Taken together, the signals suggest traders are positioning for another decline.

Bitcoin open interest rises as price falls: Bitcoin’s open interest increased more than 3% to approximately 765,000 BTC even as its price declined. The CVD remained negative, although annualized funding rates were still slightly positive.

HBAR shows strong bearish positioning: HBAR posted the most negative 24-hour CVD among the top 25 cryptocurrencies, while funding rates were around -20%. The combination points to strong bearish positioning, with all of the top 25 tokens recording negative CVD.

Bitcoin volatility retreats: Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility gauge, BVIV, dropped below 36%, reversing an earlier rise toward 39% this week. The decline suggests investors continue to favor overwriting strategies designed to generate additional income from existing spot holdings. Ether’s EVIV is showing a similar trend.

Options bets remain divided: On Deribit, Bitcoin call options at $70,000, $69,000 and $67,000 were among the five most actively traded contracts. For Ether, put options at $1,700 and $1,780 attracted greater attention, highlighting more defensive positioning.

Token Moves

Ether.fi’s ETHFI token was the strongest performer over the past 24 hours, gaining 11.5% after the platform added tokenized stocks and DeFi lending products to its neobank offering. The token later surrendered some of those gains, falling 3.3% on Friday.

Cosmos also posted a strong move, with ATOM rising more than 10% over 24 hours. Trading volume jumped 232% to $51 million despite the lack of a clear catalyst behind the rally.

Fetch.ai and Monero continued their weekly gains, rising 0.55% and 0.81%, respectively, since midnight UTC.

Meanwhile, NEAR, MORPHO, TAO and JUP each declined roughly 2% since midnight as cautious sentiment continued to dominate the broader crypto market.

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