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Bitcoin reverses from $79,500 as oil surge triggers broader crypto selloff
BTC fails at $80,000 and drops 2% as rising oil prices weigh on sentiment with altcoins leading losses across a volatile session.
Apr 27, 2026, 10:37 a.m.
What to know:
- Bitcoin spiked up to $79,500 before reversing, with the selloff accelerating after BTC failed to break the $80,000 level.
- The move coincided with rising oil prices. Brent crude hit $107 following developments tied to U.S.-Iran tensions .
- Altcoins underperformed during the downturn, with LDO dropping 17% while major sector indexes fell as much as 2.5%.
By 05:30 UTC, the price began falling after it failed to break above the $80,000 level, dropping 2% in an hour.
The decline occurred as oil reached its highest level since the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran began. Brent crude trades at $107 per barrel after U.S. President Donald Trump canceled plans to send U.S. officials for talks in Pakistan on Saturday.
Ether (ETH) recently traded around $2,320 after losing 2.2% since midnight UTC, underperforming bitcoin, which is down by 1.1%, but not falling as precipitously as several altcoins.
Derivatives positioning
- Nearly $300 million in crypto futures bets have been liquidated in the past 24hours. Most of these have been bearish short plays, which likely faced the brunt of the cryptocurrency’s brief rally to nearly $79,500.
- Open interest (OI) in XRP futures rose by nearly 2.5% in 24 hours. That’s the biggest increase among major tokens, including bitcoin, ether and solana (SOL). The OI touched a one-week high of 1.82 billion XRP alongside negative perpetual futures funding rates and OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta. This combination paints a bearish picture, consistent with the bitcoin and ether markets.
- Analysts, however, said that persistent negative funding rates in BTC are mainly due to institutions hedging their bullish exposure in related markets and do not represent an outright bearish bet on the market.
- HBAR, CC, XLM and HYPE are other standout OI gainers of the past 24 hours.
- SUI records the most negative CVD, suggesting sustained aggressive selling through market orders. A Sui-based DeFi protocol named Scallop was hacked early today, and the perpetrators walked away with approximately 150,000 SUI tokens valued just over $140,000.
- Bitcoin and ether’s 30-day implied volatility indexes extended declines, painting a picture of market calm that supports continued price rallies in the two assets. This is consistent with the recent drop in Wall Street’s VIX index, a gauge for the S&P 500 index, and record highs in other key measures, including the Nasdaq.
- On Deribit, bitcoin and ether options continue to show a bias for puts across all time frames. Ether options expiring in December and next March are notably less bearish than their bitcoin counterparts.
- Bitcoin’s $80,000 strike call option is the most popular on Deribit, boasting a notional open interest of over $1.5 billion. The dealer gamma here is positive, which implies that dealers (market makers) could sell on a potential breakout above this level and similarly buy the dip, arresting the price volatility.
- Speaking of flows, Laser Digital said investors are favoring risk reversals over outright puts. This means traders prefer options strategies that profit from price swings and differences in how options are priced at different strike levels.
