Bitcoin recovers toward $64,000 as weekend selling pressure fades
Bitcoin advanced 1.6% over the last 24 hours, climbing as high as $64,160 to reach its highest level since July 31 before retreating slightly to trade just below $64,000. The rebound marks a settling of nerves after a weekend marred by a cold wallet exploit and fresh bitcoin sales from the world’s largest corporate holder, developments that had combined to knock the market lower.
The selloff was triggered by two distinct events. First, researchers tracking a cold wallet hack confirmed that roughly 1,816 BTC, worth approximately $114 million, had been removed from more than 5,200 addresses since July 30. The exploit targeted a flaw in the firmware of Coldcard wallets, a popular hardware wallet brand among self-custody advocates. The breach raised immediate questions about the security assumptions that underpin hardware-based cold storage, long considered one of the safest approaches to holding digital assets.
Second, Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate bitcoin holder, sold 1,638 bitcoin between July 27 and August 2 at an average price of $63,957. That represented the company’s third sale of the year and, notably, came in below Strategy’s average acquisition cost of $75,419 per coin. The company uses the proceeds to fund dividends and buybacks on its preferred stock, STRC. The sale added to the supply overhang already created by the Coldcard exploit, compounding downward pressure on spot prices.
With both sources of selling pressure now receding from the headlines, the market has found a floor, at least temporarily. Bitcoin’s recovery to just under $64,000 suggests that the initial shock has been absorbed, though the broader sentiment picture remains deeply cautious. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has dropped to 25, a reading that places market sentiment firmly in the “extreme fear” territory. That metric, which aggregates volatility, momentum, social media signals, and dominance data, has been a reliable contrarian indicator in past cycles, though traders remain wary of calling a bottom.
The ETF flow picture offers a similarly mixed signal. Spot bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $61.5 million across the whole of last week, a period that coincided with the initial Coldcard exploit reports. However, $170 million flowed back into the products yesterday, suggesting that institutional demand was quick to return once the immediate panic subsided. Ether ETFs painted a slightly different picture, with $27.4 million in inflows over the week but $11.4 million in outflows on Monday, indicating that appetite for the second-largest cryptocurrency remains more tentative.
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Derivatives positioning reveals hedged altcoin bets and subdued majors
While the spot market tells a story of cautious recovery, the derivatives market is sending more nuanced signals, with a clear divergence between elevated activity in certain altcoins and a listless picture in bitcoin and ether futures.
Bitcoin’s open interest (OI) spiked briefly 24 hours ago but has since dropped back to 740,000 BTC, a level where it has largely held in recent weeks. Ether’s OI shows a similarly lacklustre trend. Neither major is seeing the kind of sustained positioning that would suggest strong conviction among leveraged traders. This stands in sharp contrast to the activity seen in selected altcoins.
ATOM, the native token of the Cosmos network, is up nearly 9% over the past 24 hours, making it one of the best-performing tokens in the market. The rally is accompanied by elevated positioning in the futures market, with open interest perched near a record high of 80 million tokens. However, the underlying derivatives metrics tell a more complicated story. Both the annualised perpetual funding rates and the 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) for ATOM are negative, pointing to a growing bias for shorts and bearish plays. That suggests the spot rally is being actively hedged by traders who are not yet convinced the move is sustainable. The token’s 12% gain over three days comes off record lows, meaning it remains broadly in a downtrend despite the recent bounce.
Cardano’s ADA presents a different pattern entirely. Its futures OI has hit a record high of 2.79 billion coins, and its 24-hour CVD is the highest among major cryptocurrencies. A positive CVD indicates that buyers are being more aggressive, executing at market orders rather than waiting passively at limit prices. Funding rates for ADA also hold slightly positive. Both data points validate the spot price gain, suggesting that the rally is underpinned by genuine buying pressure rather than short-covering or speculative froth.
The broader altcoin profile is mixed. Among the top 20 tokens by market capitalisation, ADA, TRX, ZEC, AVAX, and ETH are seeing positive CVD readings, while others remain negative. That divergence reflects a market in which capital is rotating selectively rather than lifting all boats.
Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, known as BVIV, has dipped to nearly 36%, its lowest level since May 31. The reading points to market calm and an absence of panic-driven demand for options protection. Yet it also warrants caution. The index is trading cheap relative to its 30-day and 200-day averages, and volatility is widely understood to be mean-reverting. With BVIV sitting close to a historical floor, a sharp rise in volatility could be on the horizon, particularly if spot prices break out of their current range.
Options market activity on Deribit reinforces the range-bound thesis. For bitcoin, activity is concentrated in the $60,000 put and calls at the $70,000 and $72,000 strikes. The $70,000 call is the most traded BTC option of the past 24 hours. For ether, the $1,900 call leads. The $60,000 to $72,000 corridor for bitcoin represents the boundaries beyond which volatility and the speed of directional moves are likely to gather pace.
Cardano’s ADA defies market gloom with ecosystem-driven rally
In a market where most major cryptocurrencies are little changed or lower, Cardano’s ADA has emerged as one of the few clean standouts. The token ripped to $0.195, its highest level since July 4, with its market capitalisation gaining 24% over the week, according to data from Santiment.
The rally has an unusual characteristic. Cardano has 7,070 fewer non-empty wallets, meaning addresses holding any ADA at all, than it did two months ago. The price has risen while the holder base has shrunk, a dynamic that typically signals stronger hands absorbing the supply that weaker hands are dumping. Retail investors have not yet chased the move, which cuts both ways. On one hand, conviction from existing buyers is evident. On the other, the rally is thin, supported by a smaller group of holders. If retail returns and wallet counts turn back up, it would confirm the move. If the price keeps climbing while wallets keep falling, a smaller group is holding up the tape.
What separates this rally from a pure sentiment pop is the ecosystem work behind it. Cardano has been actively shipping upgrades. The Leios testnet has seen progress, the Hydra scaling layer continues to develop, and Mithril upgrades have been deployed. A Pyth price-feed integration has been completed, and fresh Catalyst funding has been allocated to developers building on the network. These developments give the rebound more fundamental grounding than a typical altcoin bounce driven by social media hype or short-term speculative flows.
The derivatives data corroborates the spot picture. With OI at a record 2.79 billion coins, positive CVD, and slightly positive funding rates, the market is pricing in further upside. That is a stark contrast to ATOM, where the rally is being hedged, and to bitcoin and ether, where futures activity remains subdued.
Macro backdrop and outlook
The macroeconomic environment adds another layer of complexity. The Japanese yen slumped almost 4% after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the United States joined Japan in coordinated intervention to support the currency. The move has revived comparisons to the carry-trade unwind that roiled global markets in August 2024, when a sharp yen rally forced leveraged traders to liquidate risk assets across the board.
Bitcoin’s 52-week correlation with the USD/JPY pair stands at minus 0.90, a deeply negative reading that points to dollar strength as the larger risk for the cryptocurrency. A stronger dollar, potentially triggered by further yen weakness or intervention dynamics, could weigh on bitcoin prices even as crypto-specific factors stabilise.
Taken together, the picture is one of a market that has absorbed a discrete shock but remains in a fragile state. Bitcoin has recovered toward $64,000 as the Coldcard exploit and Strategy sales fade from the immediate agenda, but the Fear and Greed Index at 25, subdued futures positioning, and a volatility index near historical lows all suggest that complacency rather than confidence is the dominant mood. The standout strength in ADA, underpinned by real ecosystem progress and validated by derivatives data, shows that selective opportunities exist. But the mixed altcoin profile, the hedged positioning in ATOM, and the macro risk from yen intervention indicate that a broad-based recovery remains elusive. Traders are likely to watch the $60,000 to $72,000 range closely, with a break in either direction likely to trigger the volatility that the options market is currently pricing as cheap.
