by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • Bitcoin is trading at $111,000 on Tuesday as it clings on to the critical level $110,000 level of support.
  • Altcoins have performed even worse of late; plasma (XPL) is down by 58% in a week while FET, OP and ETHFI all lost more than 35% of their value respectively.
  • The BTC futures market appears to be stabilizing following its recent volatility.
  • Open interest has settled around $25.5 billion, showing no major change from yesterday after the weekend's significant drop.

What Happened

Investors who bought after exchange listings are facing steep losses amid weak market sentiment.

Analysts expect continued downward pressure once early investor tokens become fully liquid, ICOdrops data shows a major unlock will occur in Q2 of 2026.

Market Context

Bitcoin is trading at $111,000 on Tuesday as it clings on to the critical level $110,000 level of support.

The world's largest cryptocurrency has struggled to to recover from a weekend sell-off that saw it tumble from $121,000 to $110,000, wiping out $500 billion in terms of overal crypto market cap.

The BTC futures market appears to be stabilizing following its recent volatility. Open interest has settled around $25.5 billion, showing no major change from yesterday after the weekend's significant drop. The 3-month annualized basis is now trading in a lower range of 5-6%, a drop from its earlier rebound and indicating a slight cooling of bullish sentiment. A key divergence remains in funding rates, with Bybit's rate turning negative at -5%, while Hyperliquid's remains positive at 10%. This suggests a mixed and complex market sentiment, with strong but isolated long and short conviction across different platforms.

The BTC options market is showing a significant bullish acceleration. The 24-hour Put/Call Volume is now roughly balanced at a 50-50 split, a shift from being call-dominated, while the 1-week 25 Delta Skew has spiked dramatically to 12.62%. This high positive skew indicates a substantial premium for call options over puts, showing that traders are aggressively positioning for upside price action and are willing to pay a premium for bullish exposure.

Coinglass data shows $627 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 70-30 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($185 million), BTC ($125 million) and Others ($69 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $110,600 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price drop.

Tokens were sold in the public round at $0.05 each, leaving ICO buyers comfortably in profit at current prices of around $0.41.

Why It Matters

Altcoins have performed even worse of late; plasma (XPL) is down by 58% in a week while FET, OP and ETHFI all lost more than 35% of their value respectively.

Derivatives Positioning

Details

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

Plasma XPL$0.4163 fell another 13.5% on Tuesday, extending its losses to 52% since debuting in late September.

The stablecoin-focused layer-1 blockchain faces skepticism over its tokenomics and large “ecosystem & growth” allocations.

Circulating supply stands at 1.8 billion against a total of 10 billion, pointing to years of potential sell pressure as vested tokens unlock.