Crypto Slides Deepen as Bitcoin Drops Below $67K; Metals Climb on Rate-Cut Bets
Bitcoin and ether extended their pullback over the past 24 hours, weighing on crypto-linked equities even as precious metals rallied on growing expectations of U.S. monetary easing.
Bitcoin fell 2.4% to around $66,900, while ether declined 2.7%, slipping back under the $2,000 threshold. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index dropped 3.7%, signaling broad-based weakness across major tokens.
Crypto-related stocks followed the downturn. Coinbase fell roughly 4% in pre-market trading, while Bullish (BLSH) slid 2.3%. Bitcoin treasury firms Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) each declined about 2.3%. Robinhood dropped 4.7% after reporting a 38% quarter-over-quarter decline in crypto trading revenue.
In contrast, traditional safe-haven assets moved higher. Gold gained 0.9% to $5,070 per ounce, while silver surged more than 5%. The rally followed softer-than-expected U.S. retail sales data, reinforcing signs of cooling consumer demand.
The U.S. dollar weakened and Treasury yields declined as traders recalibrated expectations for Federal Reserve policy. On prediction platforms, the implied probability of a March rate cut climbed from 7% at the start of the month to roughly 19% on Polymarket and 21% on Kalshi.
Derivatives Signal Continued Deleveraging
Positioning in crypto derivatives markets reflects mounting caution.
Bitcoin futures open interest has fallen to $15.6 billion, indicating ongoing deleveraging. Funding rates have turned decisively negative — particularly on Binance (-6%) and Bybit (-0.50%) — while the three-month futures basis has narrowed to 1.6%, suggesting cooling institutional demand.
Options markets show elevated demand for downside protection. The one-week 25-delta skew has risen to 23%, signaling defensive positioning, even as call options account for 55% of activity — a sign that some traders are selectively positioning for a potential bounce.
Implied volatility remains relatively stable across maturities, leaving the term structure balanced between backwardation and contango — a reflection of expensive short-term hedging alongside steadier longer-term expectations.
Coinglass data shows $297 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with longs accounting for 77% of the total. Bitcoin led with $121 million in liquidations, followed by ether at $89 million. Binance liquidation data highlights $66,100 as a key downside level to monitor.
Institutional Lending Expands Onchain
Separately, Spark — the onchain capital allocator incubated by Sky — announced two institutional-focused lending products aimed at linking the estimated $33 billion offchain crypto lending market with DeFi infrastructure.
Spark Prime allows institutional clients to trade on margin and settle off-exchange while deploying collateral across both centralized and decentralized venues. Spark Institutional Lending is designed for firms requiring regulated custody, enabling borrowing against assets held offchain through integrations with custodians such as Anchorage Digital.
Spark currently oversees more than $9 billion in stablecoin liquidity across DeFi and reports $5.2 billion in total value locked, according to DefiLlama.
Its governance token, SPK, rose over 2% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market despite the overall risk-off tone.
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