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Bitcoin ticks higher, but remains range-bound as traders keep short bias
BTC rises to $77,000 after holding $75,000 support, but negative funding, unchanged open interest and cautious positioning signal a lack of conviction.
May 1, 2026, 10:20 a.m. 2 min read
What to know:
- Bitcoin has been stuck between $75,000 and $80,000 since April 19, with negative funding rates indicating that traders are still shorting any rallies.
- Derivatives data reflects weak conviction: Open interest is steady at $19 billion and basis remains subdued at 1.5% annualized.
- Options markets lean bullish, with call-heavy flows and easing downside hedging demand despite broader macro uncertainty.
U.S. equity index futures were little changed. Nasdaq 100 futures cooled after the week’s Big Tech earnings, while S&P 500 futures are marginally in the black, up 5 points.
Precious metals fell, with gold and silver losing 1% and 0.7%, respectively, and the altcoin market is a mixed bag; AXS and HYPE rose by around 3%, but DeFi tokens MORPHO and AAVE are both in the red.
Derivatives positioning
- Open interest in bitcoin futures holds at $19 billion, roughly unchanged week-over-week, with speculative activity showing little conviction.
- Funding rates are broadly negative across multiple venues at around -2% annualized, except on Deribit, which saw a spike to 37%. The three-month annualized basis sits at 1.5%, also flat on the week, pointing to continued institutional caution.
- Options sentiment leans bullish: put/call volume over the past 24 hours is 58% in favor of calls, and the one-week delta skew has eased to 8.6% from 9.5%, indicating moderating demand for downside protection.
- The implied volatility term structure is in contango, with the front-end around 29% rising to ~45% at the March ’27 tenor, suggesting the market is pricing longer-dated uncertainty rather than immediate tail risk.
- CoinGlass data shows $149 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 30-70 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($50 million) and ETH ($29 million) led in terms of notional liquidations.
- The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $75,400 as a core liquidation level to monitor in the event of a price drop.
