coindesk.com 
Bitcoin $BTC$84,459.46 slipped below $80,000 on Tuesday, dropping 0.4% since midnight UTC to near $79,700. Altcoins fell further, with ether $ETH$2,490.55, the largest, losing 0.5%. The DeFi index (DFX) dropped 1.8%, the most of any CoinDesk index, a reversal from Monday, when it was the only index to gain.
U.S. stock index futures edged lower ahead of big-tech earnings later this week. Asian tech shares rallied, with South Korea’s Kospi rising 3.1%, though the advance didn’t pull crypto along with it. Oil rose, with U.S. crude approaching $102 a barrel.
The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting today, with an interest-rate decision on Wednesday and CME’s FedWatch tool showing around a 90% chance of no change. Traders will be looking for clues on whether another rate increase is likely before year-end. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $110 million on Monday, according to Farside Investors, ending two days of outflows.
Derivatives positioning
- Volume surge: Across crypto futures, volume rose 18% to $152 billion in 24 hours after falling yesterday, while open interest (OI) rose just 0.95%. Liquidations eased 13% to $133 million. The taker long/short ratio is 49.54% to 50.46%, so market orders were split almost evenly.
- Capital inflows on the dip: $BTC and $ETH fell about 1.1% over 24 hours and $SOL lost 1.91%, while their futures open interest rose about 1%, 0.8% and 3.6%, respectively. Money entered as prices fell, with $SOL adding the most. Funding stayed positive for all three, so longs have not left. $SOL's cumulative volume delta (CVD) ended negative, which shows market-order selling.
- SOXL reversal: Money that entered SOXL, a contract tied to a triple-leveraged semiconductor ETF, has left over the past 24 hours. Futures open interest is down 7.4% alongside an 8% gain in the perp price. The gains, therefore, look to have been fueled predominantly by unwinding of shorts. SKHYNIX, a contract tied to chipmaker SK Hynix, did the same on a smaller scale, and its funding fell to 0.0221% from 0.0516%.
- Crude funding: Funding for oil is still the only negative rate on the list, deepening to -0.0115% from -0.0077%. The move points to a persistent bias for short positions. Open interest rose 2.18% on a 0.86% price gain, so money is returning after yesterday's outflow.
- Options flow: The most traded bitcoin options play of the past 24 hours is the $72,000 put expiring on Dec. 25. The rest of the top five by volume are all call options. $BTC’s 25-delta put-call skews remain positive across tenors, indicating a bias for downside protection. Ether options display a similar sentiment.
Token talk
- Privacy coins held up better than most, with dash DASH$52.23 rising 1.8%. Zcash (ZEC) added 0.5% as co-founder Sean Bowe proposed ending the 8% share of newly created coins that funds the network’s community grants program, saying its treasury of around $125 million could cover years of spending.
- DeFi tokens gave back Monday’s gains, with aave AAVE$157.15 falling 3.6% and sky SKY$0.07611, the token behind the project formerly called MakerDAO, losing 3.9%. Aave’s DAO has not bought back tokens since April.
- AI-linked tokens fell even as Asian tech stocks rallied, with render (RENDER), the GPU computing network, and the graph GRT$0.02495, the blockchain data protocol, each losing than 2%.
- Celestia ($TIA), starknet STRK$0.05642 and pump.fun PUMP$0.005148 all fell around 3%, with celestia faceing an unlock of 5.58 million $TIA on Saturday, according to Tokenomist.
- CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season index rose to 57/100 from 53 on Monday.
