Bitcoin’s (BTC) rising funding rate and aggregated open interest suggest bullish investors are opening longs in an attempt to defend the range lows and an important support at $70,000, but another day of spot ETF outflows has investors concerned that the institutional stance on BTC is shifting.
As shown in the chart below, Bitcoin open interest remains relatively stable despite the day-over-day selling, further re-enforcing the view that long positions are either topping up to stay open or newly created. The cross-exchange funding rates (the last indicator at the bottom of the chart) are also mostly positive to neutral, indicating a long-leaning bias among investors.
BTC/USDT one-hour chart. Source: Velo.xyz
Prior to the drop to $73,000, liquidations remained within norms of BTC’s intra-day range percentage-wise, suggesting that this week’s price action is a continuation of the current consolidation rather than early confirmation of a higher-timeframe trend change.
One important point to consider is “who” is propping BTC up. Hyblock’s True Retail Longs & Shorts Accounts indicator shows retail investors increasingly viewing corrections as dip-buying opportunities.
Hyblock analysts said that,
“Long exposure now sits near 62%, a level where retail traders have historically been vulnerable to getting trapped. Over the last three months, backtested 15-minute data shows that when retail long positioning was above 62%, BTC posted positive returns 82% of the time seven days later, with a median forward return of 3.6% across 1,459 occurrences.”
True retail longs and shorts accounts’ 7-day future price change %. Source: Hyblock
Related: Bitcoin miner inflows to Binance soar as BTC struggles to hold uptrend: Is $70K next?
ETF outflows, negative Coinbase premium counters spot and perp traders’ efforts
According to Bitfinex analysts, Bitcoin investors are “cautious heading into Thursday’s (May 29) Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report for April.”
The analysts said,
“Since 15 May, futures open interest (OI) has fallen sharply following a price correction that has seen BTC fall over 10 percent from recent highs above $82,000. Bitcoin’s aggregated global OI has now dropped back below $55 billion, the lowest reading since 11 April, and is down 14 percent from when BTC was trading above $80,000.”
On Wednesday, outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs topped $200 million, while cumulative outflows over the past 7 days exceeded $1.5 billion. In addition to the reversal in ETF flows, Bitfinex pointed to the negative Coinbase premium as a “significant warning sign.”
Spot Bitcoin ETF weekly flows. Source: SoSoValue.com
“In the post-ETF landscape, this reflects a structural reality: direct US spot demand on Coinbase has been largely displaced by indirect institutional demand via ETFs, structured products, and over-the-counter desks.”
The analysts noted that even while Bitcoin price is “in an uptrend on the lower timeframes since the breakout” from $72,000, “the continuation set-up is absent.”
“A strong uptrend is typically driven via the spot tape, which would mean persistent negative funding rates and a persistent positive Coinbase premium. The opposite is the case at present.”
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