Bitcoin slips to $70,000 as oil surge, Fed pause weigh on risk assets

BTC dipped below $70,000 as energy prices spiked and the Fed held interest rates, pressuring crypto and equities.

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What to know:

• Bitcoin and ether fell Thursday, tracking broader risk-off sentiment, after the Fed held interest rates and boosted the U.S. dollar.
• Energy markets surged as the war with Iran notched up, with oil and gas price spikes adding macro pressure to crypto.
• Altcoins underperformed due to thin liquidity, though a few tokens, like NEO and ETHFI, posted gains.

Bitcoin BTC$70,426.40 nursed fresh losses on Thursday after bearing the brunt of soaring energy prices, with Brent crude oil rising to $114 and Oman crude pushing up to $150.

European natural gas futures followed suit, surging about 25% to above $78 per MWh on Thursday as Iran attacked key Gulf energy infrastructure after an Israeli strike on its South Pars gas field.

Bitcoin traded near $70,000 having lost 1.6% since midnight UTC while ether (ETH) dropped 1.7% to $2,160.

The Federal Reserve also had an impact after it left rates unchanged in the 3.50%–3.75% range on Wednesday, pausing a rate-cutting cycle to boost the U.S. dollar.

Risk assets tumbled across the board as a result, with Nasdaq 100 futures down by around 0.3% since midnight UTC.

Derivatives positioning

• Nearly $600 million in leveraged crypto futures bets have been liquidated by crypto platforms in 24 hours, with longs, or bullish plays, accounting for most of the tally. The overnight price drop clearly caught bulls off guard.
• Industry-wide, futures open interest (OI) has declined by 5.6% to $106.90.
• Ether futures OI dropped 9% as the token's spot price fell 6%. This combination represents capital outflows.
• Futures tied to tether gold (XAUT) and privacy-focused ZEC saw double-digit declines, indicating investor risk aversion.
• Bearish short plays are in demand again, as evidenced by negative funding rates for BTC, ETH, BNB, SOL and other tokens. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta for most of these coins is negative, underlining the position.
• Fear has crept back into the market. Volmex's BVIV, which measures the 30-day implied, or expected, price turbulence in bitcoin, has jumped over 5% to 58.36%, ending a week-long decline. The same is true for ether.
• On Deribit, bitcoin and ether put skews have strengthened, again indicating heightened downside concerns.
• Block flows featured an outsized demand for ether straddles, a volatility strategy. In BTC's case, traders chased risk reversals and put spreads.

Token talk

• Several altcoins were dealt deep moves to the downside on Thursday, notably bittensor (TAO) and hyperliquid (HYPE), which lost 8.8% and 6.5%, respectively, since midnight.
• The move in the altcoin market can be attributed to a lack of liquidity in a market that remains fractured following a $19 billion leverage wipeout in October.
• A select few tokens showed strength despite the broader market pullback. NEO rose by 4.2% and restaking token ETHFI continued its strong start to the year, adding 1.5% to $0.55.
• The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) is in the red after losing around 1% since midnight, while the DeFi Select Index (DFX) and CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) are down by 1.4% and 2%, respectively.

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Bitcoin fell 2% while gold and silver saw sharper declines as oil prices surged and the Fed flashed hawkish signals.

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