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Bitcoin drops toward $69,000 as Saylor sale spooks investors while AI tokens buck the trend
The price of bitcoin fell to its lowest since April 7 as Strategy’s sale dented sentiment, while AI tokens H and NEAR surged and DeFi TVL hit a 20-month low.
Jun 2, 2026, 10:00 a.m. 2 min read
What to know:
- Bitcoin broke below $70,000 for the first time since April 7, with seven of the past eight four-hour candles closing red.
- AI tokens bucked the trend as Humanity Protocol (H) and Near Protocol (NEAR) advanced over 24 hours.
- DeFi is deteriorating, with total value locked across all protocols sliding to some $78 billion, the least since October 2024.
Ether (ETH) tracked the slide, shedding around 1.7% since midnight UTC and continuing to trade below the key $2,000 level.
Not everything is pointing lower, however. Optimism around artificial intelligence is providing a boost for AI-adjacent tokens, with Humanity Protocol (H) rising 18% on Tuesday alone, part of a remarkable 278% rally since May 28.
Elsewhere in the altcoin market, Stellar (XLM) lost more than 6% since midnight as it continues to unwind a 102% surge from last month, while SUI and ETHFI lost around 3% apiece.
Derivatives positioning
- Bitcoin open interest (OI) sits at $19.2 billion, essentially unchanged from a week ago, with speculative positioning broadly unchanged.
- Funding rates remain positive across multiple venues at 0%–10% annualized. The three-month annualized basis rose to around 3%, up from 2.4% last week, pointing to a continued mild increase in institutional risk appetite.
- Options positioning is sending mixed signals. The put/call volume over the past 24 hours splits 65/35 in favor of calls, but one-week 25-delta skew has spiked to 17% from 11% a week ago, indicating a sharp pickup in demand for downside protection. Front-end implied vol (DVOL) has recovered to 39 from multimonth lows, confirming the recent volatility compression has ended.
- Coinglass data shows $768 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 84-16 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($448 million) and ETH ($92 million) led in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $68,600 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price drop.
