Bitcoin’s Dance with the Devil: Bulls Beware, Bears Rejoice?

So here we stand, on the precipice of value, but not yet in the land of recovery. Cheap prices may slow the selling, but a true turnaround requires more: ETF flows must stabilize, large buyers must return, and the forced sellers must be washed away like yesterday’s news. Until then, we are but spectators in this grand theater of the absurd.

Token Talk

• Velvet’s VELVET, that siren of the crypto seas, has more than doubled again, surging 125% in 24 hours to $1.76. Over the past week, it has skyrocketed 1,400%, riding the wave of SpaceX’s IPO debut. But beware, for the gap between price and usage is as wide as the Grand Canyon. The protocol holds a mere $840,000 in deposits, yet $108 million in VELVET changes hands daily. A rally built on promises, not on substance. How long can this charade last?
• The token has leaped to No. 82 by market value from No. 128 in just a few days, now worth a staggering $745 million. But with SpaceX publicly listing today, the catalyst driving this run has played out. “Sell-the-news” risk looms large, and controversy already swirls around VELVET’s spot and futures markets. Will it crash and burn like so many before it? Only time will tell.
• XRP, once the darling of the crypto world, now wallows in despair. Santiment reports its weighted sentiment has plummeted to its lowest since October 2025, a testament to price weakness and fatigue. Years of hype around Ripple‘s legal clarity and institutional adoption have left traders jaded. Yet, Santiment dares to frame this as contrarian. XRP’s sharpest rebounds, they say, have often come when traders were most checked out. But sentiment extremes mark exhaustion, not timing, and ledger activity does not always translate into demand. A glimmer of hope, perhaps, but a faint one.

Derivatives positioning

• Crypto futures volume has dropped 9% to $180.9 billion, while open interest holds steady at $105 billion. Traders, it seems, are stepping back from making new bets rather than unwinding existing positions. The market pauses, but does it panic? Not yet, it appears.
• Open interest in DOGE futures has jumped by 5.7% to 12.70 million tokens, ending a recent spate of declines. Capital inflows into the memecoin have renewed, with perpetual funding rates and 24-hour cumulative volume delta pointing to a bullish mood. Ah, DOGE, the eternal optimist of the crypto world, always ready for a rally.
• Bitcoin, Monero, and Solana lead the coins with the most positive CVD, a clear sign that aggressive buyers dominate these markets. They lift offers with market orders, unwilling to wait passively with limit orders. Meanwhile, TON, TRX, and CC display opposite CVD dynamics, a tale of two markets.
• Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV) has slipped further to 43.8%, nearly reversing the early month pump from 45% to nearly 60%. Traders, it seems, continue to price out uncertainty and bet on a price rise. But will their optimism be rewarded, or will they be left holding the bag?
• In the bitcoin options market, long call butterflies continue to hit the tape, signaling a bias for a bounce to $75,000 followed by consolidation there till the end of July. A bold prediction, indeed, but one that may yet prove as fleeting as a summer breeze.