Bitcoin Price Under Pressure: What’s Driving Today’s Crypto Market Moves?

Crypto markets face another tense session as Bitcoin struggles to find footing below key resistance levels. The flagship cryptocurrency continues wrestling with selling pressure despite broader macro tailwinds that should theoretically boost risk assets.

Market Mechanics Exposed

Traders point to leveraged long positions getting liquidated while institutional flows show modest outflows—classic signs of weak-handed money exiting stage left. Options markets flash caution signals with put/call ratios tilting bearish for the first time this month.

Altcoins Get Dragged Along

Ethereum and major altcoins mirror BTC's weakness, though some DeFi tokens show relative strength. The correlation crush everyone praised during rallies works both ways, apparently. Nothing like watching your 'uncorrelated asset' drop 8% because Bitcoin sneezed.

Regulatory Shadows Loom

Whispers of renewed regulatory scrutiny from multiple jurisdictions aren't helping sentiment. Because nothing says 'mature asset class' like politicians suddenly remembering crypto exists during market downturns.

Silver Linings Playbook

On-chain metrics reveal accumulation at these levels—smart money buying what retail sells. Exchange reserves dropping suggests hodlers aren't panicking. Sometimes the oldest play in the book works: buy when there's blood in the streets. Even if that blood is just a 15% correction from all-time highs.

Derivatives Positioning

• Leveraged crypto bulls have been burned, with futures bets worth $940 million liquidated in the past 24 hours. More than $800 million were long positions betting on price gains. Ether alone accounted for $320 million in liquidations.
• Still, overall open interest (OI) in BTC remains elevated near lifetime highs above 740K BTC. In ether's case, the OI has pulled back to 14 million ETH from 14.60 million ETH.
• OI in SOL, XRP, DOGE, ADA, and LINK also dropped in the past 24 hours, indicating net capital outflows.
• Despite the price volatility, funding rates for most major tokens, excluding SHIB, ADA and SOL, remains positive to suggest dominance of bullish long positions.
• OI in the CME-listed standard BTC futures has fallen back to 137.3K from 145.2K, reversing the minor bounce from early this month. It shows that institutional interest in trading these regulated derivatives remains low. OI in options, however, has continued to increase, reaching its highest since late May,
• CME's ether futures OI remains elevated at 2.05 million ETH, just shy of the record 2.15 million ETH on Aug. 22. Meanwhile, OI in ether options is now at its highest since September last year.
• On Deribit, the impending multibillion-dollar expiry on Friday shows a bias towards BTC puts, indicative of concerns prices are set to drop further. The impending ether expiry paints a more balanced picture.
• Flows on the OTC desk at Paradigm have been mixed, featuring strategies such as outright put buying and put spreads in BTC, as well as calls and risk reversals in ETH.

Token Talk

• Blue-chip NFT collections faced steep weekly losses as ether (ETH) pulled back from record highs, wiping more than 10% off the value of most top projects.
• Pudgy Penguins, the leading collection by trading volume, dropped 17% to a 10.32 ETH floor, showing that even the sector’s strongest liquidity magnet couldn’t escape the downturn.
• Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) lost 14.7% to 9.59 ETH, while Doodles recorded one of the sharpest corrections, falling 18.9% to 0.73 ETH.
• Secondary projects also slumped: Moonbirds fell 10.5%, and Lil Pudgys shed 14.6%, reflecting how price pressure cascaded across both flagship and derivative collections.
• CryptoPunks proved most resilient, losing just 1.35% over the week, underscoring its status as the market’s defensive benchmark when risk appetite collapses.
• Despite lower floors, trading activity stayed high. Pudgy Penguins saw 2,112 ETH ($9.36 million) in weekly volume, followed by Moonbirds (1,979 ETH), CryptoPunks (1,879 ETH), and BAYC (809 ETH).
• Overall NFT market capitalization shrank nearly 5% to $7.7 billion, down from a $9.3 billion peak on Aug. 13. The $1.6 billion drawdown highlights how quickly capital flees when ETH slumps.
• The sharp contrast between resilient CryptoPunks and sliding newer collections strengthens its appeal as a collateral asset. Its liquidity holds up even as broader NFT floors collapse.
• For investors, the sell-off signals that NFT blue chips remain high-beta ETH proxies, with only legacy projects like CryptoPunks showing the defensive value that makes them the safer long-term institutional bet.