Bitcoin steady near $70,000 as rising open interest hints at cautious, bearish positioning

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Bitcoin steady near $70,000 as rising open interest hints at cautious, bearish positioning

Bitcoin traded around $69,800 as open interest rose to $102 billion, suggesting defensive, bearish bets while altcoins outperformed in a risk-off macro backdrop.

By Oliver Knight, Omkar Godbole|Edited by Sheldon Reback

Mar 12, 2026, 10:33 a.m.

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Rising open interest hints at bearish bets (Sean Benesh on Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)

What to know:

• Bitcoin has traded in a tight $69,000–$71,700 range for 48 hours, even as the Middle East conflict pushed oil back up toward $100 and pressured global equity markets.
• Crypto futures open interest rose 2% to $102 billion, but flat-to-negative funding rates and cumulative volume delta suggest traders are adding cautious bearish positions rather than aggressive longs.
• Altcoins are showing relative strength: HYPE, SKY and TAO gained while NIGHT fell 10% after its Binance listing triggered selling from holders.

Bitcoin BTC$70,252.74 traded recently around $70,100, down 0.1% since midnight UTC.

The largest cryptocurrency has been trapped in a tight trading range between $71,700 and $69,000 for the past 48 hours as volatility begins to wane despite continued conflict in the Middle East.

Oil rose back toward $100 per barrel on Thursday after a sixth ship was reportedly attacked by Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, adding to concerns about global energy supply.

The crypto market, however, remains relatively unperturbed; Hyperliquid's HYPE token continued its ascent toward $40, adding 2.5% since midnight while MORPHO, ETHFI, and XMR all posted gains.

U.S. stock futures continued to show weakness with the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 index futures both losing around 0.6% overnight. The Dollar Index (DXY) moved back toward 100 after Wednesday's CPI figures, putting a stop to any potential rate cuts.

Derivatives positioning

• Crypto futures open interest (OI) has increased by 2% to $102 billion in the past 24 hours.
• OI in bitcoin and ether rose by 2% and 4%, respectively, while annualized perpetual funding rates and cumulative volume delta (CVD) have remained flat to negative. This suggests that the recent build-up in open interest is being driven more by defensive, bearish positioning than by aggressive long-side bets.
• Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid's HYPE token has gained 9% in 24 hours, extending the recent bull run. The rally, however, has yet to galvanize demand for leveraged bets, as evidenced by futures OI, which remains steady near multimonth lows of about 40 million HYPE.
• Activity in tether gold (XAUT) continues to cool, with futures OI slipping to 93.50 XAUT, the lowest since Feb. 28, and down notably from the March 2 high of 149.72K XAUT. This shows that gold-linked assets are slowly falling out of favor as the rally in spot gold stalls.
• Bitcoin and ether's 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, remain steady despite a renewed overnight rally in oil and a decline in U.S. stock futures.
• The steadfastness is a sign traders are not yet seeing a meaningful shift in forward-looking risk or cross‑asset contagion for major cryptocurrencies.
• On Deribit, bitcoin and ether put options, which offer protection against a market decline, continue to trade at a premium to call options. There is notable interest in the $20,000 put option, a bet that BTC's spot price will plunge to below that level.

Token talk

• The altcoin market continues to show resilience despite a risk-off environment in global markets.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) token SKY posted a 7.6% gain over the past 24 hours while AI-focused bittensor (TAO) is up by around 4.5%.
• One token that has failed to keep tabs with its peers has been midnight (NIGHT), the privacy token set up by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. NIGHT is currently trading at $0.046, having dropped 10% in the past 24 hours after Tuesday's listing on Binance gave holders an off-ramp to sell.
• The altcoin-heavy CoinDesk 80 (CD80) Index was the best-performing benchmark over the past 24 hours, adding 2.5% while the bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 5 (CD5) is up by only 0.9%.
• The altcoin market's next move depends on whether bitcoin can break out of the current range with a move above $74,000, a breakout on convincing volume followed by a consolidation would lead to rotation into more speculative altcoins.

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