Bitcoin has experienced significant volatility after falling below the $80,000 support level, dropping as low as $72,000 before rebounding to around $76,000. This price action has triggered aggressive positioning in the derivatives market, with large investors, or “whales,” taking opposing leveraged bets. Overall market data indicates a slight dominance of bearish short positions, while technical analysis suggests sellers remain in control.
Bitcoin has seen massive volatility since breaching the $80,000 support, dropping to a low of $72,000. The cryptocurrency has since rebounded to a local high of $76,873 and currently trades around $76,000.
Amid this volatility, investors have adopted aggressive positions in the derivatives market. The battle for futures positions is especially prevalent among large market players, or whales.
According to Onchain Lens, one whale deposited $3 million and opened a Bitcoin long position with 20x leverage. This same entity previously recorded an $11 million loss on its long positions.
Another whale reportedly deposited $5.2 million and opened a Bitcoin short position with 14x leverage. This investor had made approximately $10 million on short positions before the recent market decline.
Derivatives volume increased by 50% to $108 billion, according to CoinGlass data. This suggests increased participation, while open interest fell to $50.9 billion.
The long/short ratio across all exchanges sits at 0.958, below the neutral level of 1. A ratio below 1 suggests that most Futures participants are bearish and actively positioned for further downside.
Looking at technical indicators, the DMI shows the negative index above the positive one at a reading of 36. The ADX also smoothed around 36, indicating a higher likelihood of bearish continuation bias.
The analysis states sellers are in control, and any upside move is not a trend reversal but a mere pullback. For a reversal, demand must be strong enough to reclaim the Simple Moving Average at $81,000.
