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Bitcoin slips from near $80,000 as oil price increase weighs on risk assets
Bitcoin dips after testing $80,000 as oil surges and traders stay bearish, even though a breakout hints the rally could accelerate on short squeezes.
Apr 23, 2026, 10:38 a.m.
What to know:
- Bitcoin fell 0.7% after failing to break $80,000, while ether dropped 2.5% and broader altcoins showed weak participation
- Derivatives showed a rare mix of high open interest and negative funding, raising the risk of a short squeeze-driven rally.
- Rising oil prices and falling stock futures pressured risk assets, while altcoin sentiment and capital flows continue to deteriorate.
In this article
Oil prices rose by 1.5% to $103 per barrel overnight following reports that the U.S. had seized three Iranian tankers in Asian waters, leading to a drop in risk asset prices.
Ether (ETH) lost 2.5% and now trades at $2,320 having tested $2,500 over the weekend.
The broader market remains optimistic, with bitcoin appearing to have broken out of a two-month range to the upside. It had languished between $63,000 and $75,000 since early February.
U.S. stock futures are down on Thursday with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 500 futures both losing 0.5% apiece overnight.
Derivatives positioning
- While bitcoin’s futures open interest (OI) slipped to 775K BTC from a record near 800K BTC on Wednesday, it remains at historically elevated levels. Negative perpetual funding rates suggest leveraged bets remain tilted to the bearish side.
- This combination is rare. As a result, some analysts are calling BTC’s current advance a “most hated” rally, suggesting it could accelerate if bearish traders are forced to unwind their positions.
- Open interest in DOGE has climbed above 14 billion tokens, a level seen only once since October. However, the token’s funding rates are skewed positive, suggesting growing demand for bullish bets.
- BCH, LINK and LTC are other coins with declining OI pointing to an outflow of capital from the market.
- The cumulative volume delta (CVD) signals caution, showing that more trades have been initiated by sellers hitting bids than by buyers lifting offers over the past 24 hours across most major altcoins, including XRP, SOL and ETH. Meanwhile, BTC, M and CRO are the only assets with positive CVD readings. This suggests the broader market is not yet fully participating in bitcoin’s rally.
- Bitcoin and ether’s 30-day implied volatility indices continue to stay flat around the recently hit 2.5-month lows. In other words, calm prevails even as the U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks head nowhere and oil markets remain disrupted.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to be pricier than calls in a sign of lingering downside concerns. Over the past 24 hours, demand has been concentrated in BTC call options, bullish bets, at strikes from $80,000 to $85,000.
