Bitcoin Holds Six-Week Range as Global Bond Yields Reach Multi-Decade Highs

Bitcoin continues to trade within a narrow range as volatility falls to multi-year lows, while rising government bond yields weigh on risk assets and traders look to the Federal Reserve’s July meeting minutes for clues about future interest-rate policy.

Bitcoin was trading near $64,000, down about 0.5% since midnight UTC. The largest cryptocurrency has remained between $61,500 and $66,900 since July 8, with subdued volatility reflecting the lack of a decisive catalyst.

The latest market moves have been driven largely by a sharp rise in global bond yields. The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield briefly reached 5.333%, its highest level in almost 20 years. Japan’s 10-year government bond yield climbed to a three-decade high, while Germany’s 30-year Bund yield reached levels last seen in 2011. France’s comparable yield also rose to its highest level since 2008.

Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, came under pressure as equity markets also weakened. The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.3% Tuesday, marking its biggest one-day decline since early August, while the S&P 500 recorded its third consecutive daily drop. Both indexes’ futures have stabilized since midnight.

Investors are now awaiting the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting later Wednesday. The minutes could offer further insight into the central bank’s rate outlook after officials voted to maintain the target range at 3.5% to 3.75%, despite three of the 12 voting members favoring a rate increase.

Derivatives Positioning

CoinGlass data shows the long-short taker ratio remains slightly tilted toward buyers across timeframes of up to four hours, with long positions representing about 51% of trading flow. On the daily timeframe, however, the ratio shifts marginally bearish, with shorts accounting for 50.21%, indicating that overnight positioning is less confident than intraday activity.

Bitcoin open interest has declined to around $21.8 billion from approximately $23 billion on Aug. 11. The combination of falling open interest and sideways price action suggests traders are reducing positions rather than building new exposure as they wait for a market catalyst.

Funding rates remain slightly positive across major exchanges. Bitcoin’s open-interest-weighted funding rate stands at 0.0049%, while Ethereum’s is around 0.0022%. These levels remain well below those associated with excessive leverage, reducing the likelihood of a major funding-driven liquidation event.

The largest liquidation over the past 24 hours involved a $23.35 million BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid. Total crypto liquidations reached about $190.24 million, with short positions accounting for approximately $113.27 million.

Ethereum led the liquidation heatmap over the previous four hours, with about $5.35 million in liquidations. The concentration on the short side suggests some forced short covering rather than a major buildup of new long positions.

Bitcoin futures continue to trade with a positive but moderate basis. Aug. 28 contracts carried an annualized basis of roughly 12%, while the Sept. 25 Deribit contract stood at 7.12%. The figures indicate that traders expect some upside but are not positioning for an aggressive rally.

On Deribit, short-term implied volatility was around 20.4% for the Aug. 20 expiry, with options pricing an expected move of approximately $656 in either direction. Trading activity remains concentrated around the $64,000-$65,000 strikes, signaling limited expectations for a major move before the Federal Reserve minutes are released.

Token Moves

ENA rose 2.99% since midnight to $0.0852, making it one of the day’s strongest performers after underperforming over the previous week.

LINK gained 1.82% to $9.70, holding onto gains following Standard Chartered’s bullish outlook last month and continuing to outperform many mid-cap DeFi tokens.

NEAR climbed 1.76% to $1.615, joining a small group of AI-related tokens attracting buyers after a difficult period in mid-August.

PUMP fell 3.23% to $0.002998, giving back most of Monday’s 7.8% advance as buying momentum weakened.

CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator remained at 44 out of 100, unchanged after falling to 37 on Aug. 7.

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