Altcoin Rally Fades as Bitcoin Pulls Back Over the Weekend

Bitcoin slipped on Monday as the weekend’s strong altcoin rally began to lose momentum. BTC declined about 1.1% since midnight UTC even as Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.3%.

Bitcoin was trading near $79,300 after falling roughly 1.3% since midnight UTC. The cryptocurrency spent most of the weekend moving within a narrow range after failing to break above $81,400.

The decline came alongside stronger U.S. equity futures, with Nasdaq 100 futures rising 0.3% since midnight and extending the divergence seen last week. U.S. markets are closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

Altcoins had driven much of the weekend’s upside but are now giving back some of those gains. Bittensor (TAO), Kaspa (KAS), Internet Computer (ICP) and Celestia (TIA) each gained more than 12% over the previous 24 hours, although most of those advances occurred before midnight UTC. Since then, TAO has risen just 0.4%, Chainlink (LINK) has added 1% and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) has declined 1.5%.

Derivatives Positioning

Futures sentiment turns cautious: The taker buy-sell ratio in crypto futures has shifted toward bearish positioning, with sellers accounting for 51.6% of trading flow. That reverses Friday’s more bullish setup. The change may be linked to the weekend escalation between the U.S. and Iran and renewed concerns about a possible Fed rate increase, although both factors may have been overstated by markets.

Bitcoin futures lose capital: Money continues to flow out of bitcoin futures. Open interest has dropped to 670,000 BTC from 709,000 BTC on Friday, reaching its lowest level since March 23, according to CoinGlass. Annualized perpetual funding rates are also nearing zero, removing the bullish bias reflected in earlier readings of 8%-10%.

Ether and Solana follow: Futures markets for ether and solana are showing a similar pattern of weakening positioning.

XRP open interest declines: XRP futures open interest has fallen to 2.29 billion tokens, its lowest level since Aug. 7 and well below the mid-month peak of 2.78 billion. The decline suggests capital is moving out of the market, leaving XRP trading unevenly between $1.35 and $1.45.

Smaller tokens outperform: Some smaller cryptocurrencies are bucking the broader trend. Worldcoin (WLD) saw open interest rise 11% while its spot price climbed 13%, a combination typically viewed as confirmation of a strengthening trend. WLD also posted the strongest 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta among smaller tokens. A positive CVD indicates buyers are becoming more aggressive and executing more market orders instead of relying on passive limit orders.

Major-token CVD is mixed: LINK, TRX, CC, SUI and ZEC are showing positive cumulative volume delta, while BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, NEAR, XMR and ADA are among the assets recording negative readings.

Volatility remains subdued: The 30-day implied-volatility indexes for bitcoin and ether remain close to recent lows, suggesting options markets are still anticipating relatively calm conditions.

Options positioning differs: On Deribit, the $78,000 and $80,000 bitcoin puts expiring Sept. 25 were the two most actively traded contracts over the previous 24 hours, while three of the remaining top five contracts were calls. Put options are generally used to protect against declines in the underlying asset. Ether options show the opposite pattern, with calls dominating the most active contracts.

Token Performance

Bittensor led the large-cap token market over the previous 24 hours, gaining 13% to $266 on approximately $568 million in trading volume. However, the rally has slowed considerably since midnight UTC, with TAO adding only 0.4%. The token remains up 16.4% over the past seven days.

Jupiter (JUP) was the biggest decliner, falling 9% to $0.2514 without an obvious catalyst. The Solana-based DEX aggregator token has remained under pressure since breaking below the $0.33 support level last November.

Kaspa rose 12.75% over 24 hours and 24.8% over the past week to 3.418 cents. However, the move was supported by only $17.6 million in volume against a market capitalization of $947 million, making the rally appear relatively thin.

Privacy-focused tokens have also shown mixed performance. Dash (DASH) fell 5.3% to $67.56 since midnight, although it remains up 63% over the week. Zcash (ZEC) declined 1.74% to $1,206, while Monero (XMR) remained broadly unchanged.

Arbitrum (ARB) dropped more than 10% over the previous 24 hours to 17.17 cents after nearly doubling over the past week. That made it the largest one-day loser among liquid mid-cap tokens.

Chainlink was among the few major altcoins maintaining positive momentum. LINK gained 1% since midnight UTC to $13.37 and is now up 18.6% over the past seven days.

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