Bitcoin’s Thin-Liquidity Bounce: Can the Rally Hold or Is It a Mirage?

Bitcoin's latest surge raises eyebrows—thin liquidity fuels gains, but skeptics question its durability.

Market watchers split: Is this the start of a new bull run or just another dead-cat bounce?

Traders chase momentum while whales lurk—volatility ahead as institutional players stay sidelined.

Bonus jab: Wall Street still can’t decide if crypto is an asset class or a speculative fever dream.

Good Morning, Asia. Here's what's making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk's crypto Daybook Americas.

Bitcoin staged a sharp recovery over the past week, rebounding from a dip below $114,000 to trade NEAR $121,000, in what Glassnode described in a recent report as a shift from “seller exhaustion to a strong rebound near recent ATHs.”

The rally, however, came without a surge in spot market participation.

Glassnode data shows spot trading volumes fell 22% to $5.7 billion, close to their statistical low band, suggesting the rebound has been driven more by positioning shifts than DEEP conviction buying. The Spot Cumulative Volume Delta flipped 94% toward buy pressure, a sign that aggressive selling has been replaced by renewed demand, but not yet across a broad base of traders.

On the derivatives side, Leveraged traders re-engaged aggressively, Glassnode detailed in its report.

Perpetual Cumulative Volume Delta, a measure of the buy-sell pressure in perps, jumped 88%, funding rates remained elevated, and options open interest climbed 6.7% to $42.4 billion. Yet, volatility pricing collapsed by almost a third, indicating a degree of complacency that has historically preceded large market moves.

ETF flows offered some relief, with U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETF outflows halving to $311 million from $686 million the prior week. Even so, ETF trade volume fell 27.7% to $13.7 billion, keeping activity near its low band.

QCP Capital framed the weekend surge, which briefly pushed BTC above $122,000, as a function of thin order books and a broader risk-on shift in global markets.

“Crypto staged an impressive comeback over the weekend during thin, low-liquidity trading hours,” the Singapore-based trading firm wrote, noting that the bounce aligned with a rebound in U.S. equities and growing expectations for a September Fed rate cut.

While on-chain activity improved, active addresses jumped 8.4% to 793,000, and fee volume ROSE 10%. Glassnode cautioned that elevated profitability levels could quickly turn into selling pressure if sentiment shifts. With 94.1% of supply in profit and the realized profit-to-loss ratio climbing to 1.9, the market may be nearing a point where profit-taking accelerates.

The combination of thin liquidity, bullish derivatives positioning, and macro-driven Optimism leaves Bitcoin primed for volatile moves as it approaches all-time highs, with the next test likely coming from Tuesday’s U.S. CPI release.

Polymarket traders lean toward a modest uptick in line with consensus that WOULD likely keep BTC consolidating, with hotter prints posing a short-term headwind by delaying Fed cuts and softer readings offering a potential breakout catalyst if ETF flows and spot activity strengthen.

Market Movers

Bitcoin is trading at $118k as traders pull back and position themselves for the possibility that Tuesday's CPI report might break BTC's momentum.

Ethereum is trading at $4200. Analysts say that ETH's rally is partially due to increased capacity on-chain and lower DeFi costs.

Gold slid to $3,355.13 as upbeat risk sentiment and Trump’s pledge to exclude Gold from tariffs weighed on safe-haven demand, though losses were cushioned by rising Fed rate cut bets ahead of this week’s U.S. inflation data.

Asia-Pacific markets rose Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 hitting a record high after the U.S.-China trade truce was extended, while investors awaited the Reserve Bank of Australia’s expected rate cut.

U.S. stocks eased, with the S&P 500 down 0.2% and just under its record, as investors await new inflation data .Meanwhile, Citigroup and UBS lifted their year-end S&P 500 targets, citing easing policy risks and solid earnings, with Citi raising its forecast to 6,600 and UBS to 6,100.

Elsewhere in Crypto

• Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Now Accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana for Spaceflights (Decrypt)
• Rumble Gains on Plans to Acquire Tether-Affiliated Northern Data (CoinDesk)
• Senate Banking Committee Democratic staff slam GOP crypto draft bill as ‘superhighway’ for dodging regulation (The Block)