Smart-contract and DeFi coins lead losses as bitcoin wilts for 4th straight day

The largest cryptocurrencies remained under pressure for a fourth straight day, with bitcoin falling 2.5% in 24 hours to just below $62,400.

It's not alone. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) has dropped 3.3%, with ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and solana (SOL) all weaker. The CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index fell 4%, and the CoinDesk 80 and CoinDesk DeFi Select Index are following close behind.

Concerns about Strategy (MSTR), the Michael Saylor-led bitcoin treasury company, continue to dominate market sentiment, with particular focus on its dividend-paying preferred stock, STRC.

"Strategy, the largest listed BTC holder, has watched its STRC preferred collapse below par, and the market is now openly pricing the tail that it has to sell coins to defend the structure," analysts at Marex said.

"Add five straight months of BTC trading under its estimated $78k production cost, quietly forcing the weakest miners to capitulate, and you have two real sellers that were not in the frame a week ago," they added.

Derivatives Positioning

• Bulls continue to bleed as the market wilts in the wake of Wednesday's hawkish Fed meeting. In the past 24 hours, more than $450 million in leveraged bets has been liquidated. As has been the case since the meeting, most are longs.
• Open interest (OI) in bitcoin and ether futures is largely unchanged over the past 24 hours. SOL futures OI increased to over 70 million tokens, just shy of the June 5 record 71.57 million. In other words, demand for leverage remains near all-time highs, pointing to potential for outsized volatility.
• The same is true of XRP, where futures OI is hovering at its highest since October last year.
• As for cumulative volume delta, most of the biggest 25 tokens, except TRX and LAB, show negative OI-adjusted CVD for the past 24 hours. That's a sign sellers are trading at market orders, leading the price action, as opposed to passive limit orders. It's been the same playbook since at least Wednesday.
• Funding rates for most tokens remain flat to negative, pointing to bearish sentiment. ADA, XLM, and BCH funding rates are down to between minus 20% and minus 30%.
• In the bitcoin options market, traders are lifting put options in size, prepping for a potential slide down to $52,000 or lower in the coming weeks.
• The bearish sentiment is also evident from 25-delta skews, which show one-week puts trading at a volatility premium of 10% or more.

Token Talk

• Need evidence of how frenzied sentiment about AI is? Check out the LAB token, the cryptocurrency native to the LAB Terminal, which is a browser-based and extension-accessible platform for high-performance trade execution. Its key feature: AI-powered research and trade routing to minimize slippage.
• LAB has gained 57% in seven days, a staggering rise compared with the malaise in the broader market.
• The outperformance doesn't end there: The token has surged 92% this month, following gains of 900% in May, 250% in April and 78% in March. Talk about a bull market.
• Over the same period, bitcoin has ricocheted from $68,000 to $82,000 and back to $63,000.
• While LAB's performance is impressive, their's not apparent reason for it. And it's not without controversy.
• Blockchain investigation expert ZachXBT recently highlighted that insiders supposedly own 95% of the token's supply. He said they have used four methods concurrently to attract retailer investors. These include high-interest over-the-counter loans with promotional conditions, unilateral vesting period extensions, delayed or withheld market rewards and undisclosed market-making deals.
• As the old saying goes: All that glitters is not gold.