Bitcoin drops below $80,000 as crypto ignores Asian tech rally, Fed meeting begins — SkimNews
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- Bitcoin slipped below $80,000 to about $79,700, down 0.4% since midnight UTC, even as South Korea’s Kospi rose 3.1%; ether fell 0.5% and the DeFi index lost 1.8%.
- Federal Reserve began a two-day meeting with Wednesday’s rate decision due and CME FedWatch showing roughly a 90% chance of no change; traders were looking for clues about another rate increase before year-end.
- U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $110 million on Monday, ending two consecutive days of outflows.
- Crypto futures volume rose 18% to $152 billion over 24 hours while open interest rose 0.95%; liquidations eased 13% to $133 million, and the taker long/short ratio was 49.54% to 50.46%.
- Bitcoin and ether fell about 1.1% over 24 hours while their futures open interest rose about 1% and 0.8%; SOL lost 1.91% as open interest climbed 3.6%, with funding positive across all three and SOL’s cumulative volume delta ending negative.
- Bitcoin options were led by the $72,000 put expiring Dec. 25, with the other four most-traded plays all calls; positive 25-delta put-call skews across tenors indicated a bias toward downside protection.
- Aave fell 3.6% and Sky dropped 3.9%, giving back Monday’s DeFi gains, while privacy coins outperformed with Dash up 1.8% and Zcash up 0.5%.
Why it matters: Bitcoin traders added exposure into weakness: futures open interest rose about 1% as BTC fell roughly 1.1% over 24 hours, while $110 million entered U.S. spot BTC ETFs Monday. With CME pricing a 90% chance of no Fed change Wednesday, renewed positioning accompanied the weakness as liquidations eased 13% to $133 million.
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