While the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds rose above 5.6%, Bitcoin remained around $83,000. Meanwhile, the DeFi token gave back some of its gains, and after Robinhood announced its U.S. perpetual contract plan, the price of Lighter fell.

Bitcoin has fallen 0.57% since midnight of UTC, trading at $83,164. Among the 100 constituent coins, half have risen and half have fallen on CoinDesk. Over the past 24 hours, the DeFi index has declined by 2.3%, with Aave falling by 4.4%.

Robinhood indicates that after providing encrypted perpetual futures to American customers through its own derivatives business, Lighter has fallen by 17% in the past 24 hours.

Traders are awaiting the PCE inflation data before the opening of trading in the United States. Previously, the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds broke through 5.6%, reaching a new high since June 2002.

Bitcoin BTC opened at $83,164 in Europe this morning, down 0.57% from midnight UTC; meanwhile, the rest of the crypto market showed mixed performance, with 50 out of 100 constituent coins CoinDesk rising and 50 falling.

Looking at the 24-hour trend, Bitcoin is generally weak, having fallen by about 1% from its high of $84,400 reached during trading hours in the United States on Tuesday. The CoinDesk DeFi index (DFX) has declined by 2.3%, performing the worst among all indices; Aave AAVE is at $161.53, down 4.4%, after leading the gains with a 11% increase on Tuesday.

Traditional markets, on the other hand, remained relatively strong, with the S&P 500 index futures rising by 0.27%, and the European Stoxx 600 index gaining 0.74% in the early session. Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds broke through 5.6%, reaching a new high since June 2002; the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds also rose to around 5.3%, a new high since 2007, CNBC noted. Brent crude oil was reported at $96.43, down from Tuesday's level, far lower than the $100 level seen during the sell-off in the crypto market on Monday.

There are currently no obvious catalysts to explain the sideways trend in the early session. Market attention has shifted to the U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures ( PCE ) price index, which is the inflation indicator favored by the Federal Reserve. This data will be released before Wall Street opens, while Micron financial reports will be published after the market closes. Since failing to break through $87,300 on September 21st, Bitcoin has been in a consolidation phase.

Derivative positions

Leverage continues to cool down: The ratio of active buy/sell volume across the market remains balanced for a second consecutive day; two days ago, sellers had a slight advantage, at 46.9% versus 53.1%. The settlement amount has roughly halved to $196 million, lower than yesterday's $389 million. According to CoinGlass, the number of open contracts (OI) has dropped to $147 billion, from nearly $150 billion two days ago, with trading volume decreasing by 16.9% to $181 billion.

The rise in Bitcoin is still driven by spot demand: the number of open futures contracts has dropped to 625,000 BTC, the lowest level since January 1st, down from 644,000 yesterday and 650,000 the day before. Since June, this figure has been continuously declining, yet the price has risen from $57,000 to over $80,000. This indicates that it is spot buying that is driving the upward trend, not leverage.

Binance There is still a majority of traders bullish on Bitcoin: The long-to-short ratios for retail and whale accounts have risen to 1.42 and 1.49 respectively, higher than yesterday's 1.24 and 1.31. Whale positions also increased slightly from 1.88 to 1.90, but are still below the levels of over 2.3 seen earlier this month. A long-to-short ratio above 1 indicates that there are more long positions than short positions.

Ethereum leverage continues to drain: The number of open futures contracts ETH has dropped to approximately 13.08 million, the lowest level since early March. There has been little activity in SOL and XRP futures, continuing this week's calm period.

Speculative sentiment is on the rise: PUMP has risen by nearly 16% in the past 24 hours, performing the best among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, and its open futures contracts are also on the increase. This indicates that new funds are entering the market to chase this token using leverage. If a similar pattern repeats among speculative tokens, it often signals the short-term market peak.

HBAR Short Position Expansion: HBAR Has Fallen 16% in the Past 24 Hours, but Unclosed Futures Contracts Continue to Reach New Highs. The funding rate has turned negative, having been slightly above zero just two days ago, indicating a market bias towards short selling. Traders may be hedging their spot long positions to prevent further declines. HBAR Adjusted for unclosed contracts, the 24-hour CVD is also the most negative among the major currencies, showing aggressive selling.

POL and CAKE are heavily short-sided: both have deeply negative funding rates, which means that shorts are paying to maintain their positions. LIT, on the other hand, is at the opposite end, with a clearly positive funding rate.

Volatility remains dormant: The 30-day implied volatility indices for Bitcoin and Ethereum have remained calm this week. Despite rising U.S. Treasury yields, a stronger dollar, and weaker gold prices, traders still expect the market to function in an orderly manner.

Option traders are pursuing both call and put options simultaneously: The trading volume of BTC options on Deribit indicates that demand for both call and put options is increasing, whereas the previous day there was a clear bias towards calls. In the past 24 hours, call options with an exercise price of $70,000 were the most active contracts. On the side of ETH, call options with an exercise price of $3,000 have been the most active contracts for the second consecutive day.

Token Dynamics

The token of the perpetual contract exchange, Lighter ( LIT ), has fallen by 17% in the past 24 hours, and since midnight, it has dropped another 5.6%, bringing its market value down to 2.1 billion US dollars. This decline coincides with Robinhood's announcement that it will offer perpetual futures to American customers through its own derivatives business.

Interoperability tokens lead the gains. Quant ( QNT ) has risen by 7.5% since midnight on UTC, making it the largest gainer among the top 100 with a 14% increase over the past 24 hours. Cross-chain messaging token LayerZero ( ZRO ) also saw a 13% rise during the same period.

Bonk ( BONK ) rose by 5.9%, dogwifhat ( WIF ) rose by 3.4%. Memecoin performance outperformed the broader market. The token of the meme coin launch platform, pump.fun ( PUMP ), fell by 2.7%, but still rose by 14% in the past 24 hours.

After speculation surrounding the destruction of the Aave token drove up prices on Tuesday, the DeFi token saw mixed gains and losses. Aave has fallen by 3% since midnight on UTC, and Uniswap ( UNI ) and Ondo ( ONDO ) also experienced slight declines. Curve ( CRV ) rose by 3.6%, while the liquidated collateral tokens Lido ( LDO ) and Ethena ( ENA ) both increased by 1.8%.

The "Altcoin Season" index for CoinMarketCap is at 61/100, still firmly in the bullish range. As Bitcoin consolidates, investors continue to turn to the altcoin market. This index has remained above 60/100 for five consecutive days and has not seen such a level in over three months.