Bitcoin’s Bearish Trend: Lower Highs, AI Tokens Outperform, Privacy Tokens Fall

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<a href="https://pricpr.com/btc-usd/">Bitcoin</a> risks another lower high as stocks rally, AI tokens outperformMarkets

What to know:

  • The price of bitcoin has dropped 7% over two weeks and may confirm another lower high in a bearish structure dating back to October
  • Ether fared even worse after shedding more than 10% over the same period.
  • AI-linked tokens are bucking the weakness, with the CoinDesk Computing Select Index adding 1.9%, led by RENDER and FET, while the DeFi Select Index gained 1.3%.
  • Privacy tokens are broadly lower, with ZEC, XMR and DASH falling as much as 7%.

Bitcoin’s price dropped to $76,600 on Tuesday, a 0.8% decrease since midnight UTC. This follows a short-lived increase to $77,800 on Monday. The recent dip suggests Bitcoin might be continuing a downward trend that began in October, leaving it 7% lower over the last two weeks.

The recent downturn isn’t affecting the overall stock market. Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are both up over 0.5%, suggesting the issues are specific to the crypto market and not related to wider economic or global events.

Ether (ETH) is currently performing poorly, trading at $2,098. Its value has dropped by over 10% in the last two weeks, and it’s stuck in a trading range established between February and April, with no immediate indications of a price recovery.

The altcoin market is showing varied results today. AI-related tokens are generally up, while some previously strong performers, such as zcash (ZEC), are down significantly – around 7% since midnight.

Derivatives positioning

  • Crypto futures market volume has dropped 10% to $130 billion in 24 hours. Notional open interest (OI) is little changed around $126 billion, and 24-hour liquidations have declined 21% to $126 million. This points to a steady, rather boring market environment following the extended U.S. weekend holiday (though crypto is never closed).
  • SHIB, LINK, HBAR, NEAR and TRX are major OI gainers of the past 24 hours, while ZEC, XLM and HYPE are losers. The action indicates selective market positioning rather than broad-based capital deployment across the altcoin universe.
  • NEAR rose 58% in the week ended May 24 and has since gained an additional 14% to $2.82, a level last seen in November. The rally, likely fueled by a series of upgrades involving dynamic scaling, privacy and quantum defenses, is accompanied by an influx of new money into derivatives. Open interest jumped to a record 309 million tokens from 182 million a week ago.
  • NEAR also has the most positive 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) among major tokens, a sign that buyers are setting the price action by trading at market orders rather than passive limit orders. Funding rates are only marginally positive, a sign the market is far from overheated. Together, these signal potential for continued price gains.
  • OI for futures in Chainlink’s LINK increased to 42.96 million tokens, the most since Feb. 7. Annualized funding rates of around 8% point to futures trading above the spot price in a bullish sign for the provider of oracle data.
  • Bitcoin futures have cooled. OI in BTC has pulled back to 711K BTC from 793k BTC early this month. ETH OI hovers just below record highs near 15 million ETH. BTC and ETH’s 30-day implied volatility indexes continue to slide in a sign of persistent volatility selling and no signs of panic demand for options.
  • Still, on Deribit, BTC puts at strikes from $70K to $76K are among the most traded of the past 24 hours. Puts represent a bearish bet, offering protection against price weakness in the underlying asset.

Token talk

  • CoinDesk’s Computing Select Index (CPUS) was the top-performing benchmark on Tuesday, rising by 1.9% since midnight UTC and 2.7% over the past 24 hours.
  • The CPUS is a basket of AI tokens and chainlink. FET added 4.8% on Tuesday, and RENDER climbed 7.2%.
  • The DeFi Select Index (DFX) also outperformed the crypto majors, rising by 1.3%. The gain suggests investors are opting for more speculative bets while waiting for bitcoin and ether to resolve their current trading ranges.
  • Privacy tokens weakened across the board as monero (XMR) and dash (DASH) followed zcash (ZEC) lower by around 1.5% apiece.
  • CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is currently at 35/100, up from last week’s low of 31/100 and below the monthly high of 50/100.

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2026-05-26 13:46