Bitcoin recovered to $62,500 on June 4 after plunging to $61,300 earlier in the day, but the price stability masks a sharp warning from derivatives markets: sentiment has turned decisively bearish.
The intraday crash triggered $3 billion in liquidations over two days, with $1.7 billion of that occurring in futures contracts. Bitcoin futures alone accounted for $750 million in liquidations, while Ether futures contributed $390 million, according to data from derivatives tracking platforms.
The bearish signal is unmistakable in options positioning. “The message from derivatives markets is unambiguous: Sentiment is bearish,” CoinDesk reported on the day’s volatility. Put skews have strengthened on both Bitcoin and Ether, indicating traders are hedging downside risk. On Deribit, the $60,000 strike put carries over $1 billion in notional open interest, marking a concentrated bet on further price declines.
Open interest across futures markets contracted sharply, falling 8.5% to $111.4 billion. Bitcoin open interest pulled back to 766,000 BTC from a previous record of 800,000 BTC, signaling that leveraged positions are being unwound rather than fresh bets added. Solana, however, bucked the trend: open interest surged to a record 72.16 million tokens even as prices declined, a pattern suggesting short accumulation in the altcoin.
Volatility indexes for both Bitcoin and Ether spiked over the past three sessions, reflecting heightened uncertainty. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta across the top 20 tokens turned negative, indicating more selling pressure than buying interest across the broader market.
Bitcoin touched its 200-week moving average at the $61,300 low before recovering. Ether lost 3% since midnight UTC and recently traded around $1,750. Altcoins underperformed significantly, with NEAR, ZEC, and JUP each falling 13%, while HYPE declined 12% and DASH, ENA, and FET each dropped 10%. Monero fell 4% to $347.
The 24-hour futures volume reached $305 billion, up 2.9% despite the liquidations. Market depth on altcoin pairs remains lower than on Bitcoin or Ether pairs, limiting the ability to absorb large orders without significant price movement.
On-chain metrics show 10.5 million Bitcoin tokens are underwater at current prices, while 9.8 million remain in profit, indicating a shift in the distribution of holders across price levels.
The recovery to $62,500 represents a $1,200 bounce from the intraday low, with Bitcoin reaching as high as $64,680 during the recovery phase. However, the combination of elevated put skews, declining open interest, and surging implied volatility suggests market participants remain positioned for further downside, even as prices stabilize in the near term.
