Daily Crypto Signals: Bitcoin Futures Demand Hits 2024 Lows, XRP Faces $650M Selling Pressure
Bitcoin futures open interest has fallen to its lowest level since August 2024, raising questions about institutional activity, even as spot
Quick overview
- Bitcoin futures open interest has dropped to its lowest level since August 2024, raising concerns about institutional activity despite ongoing engagement in spot ETFs.
- XRP is facing a potential technical breakdown with significant exchange inflows that could push its price below $1 for the first time in months.
- Regulatory progress in the U.S. is stalled due to political differences, while cryptocurrency losses from scams have decreased significantly, indicating improved security measures.
- Despite a decline in futures open interest, institutional interest in Bitcoin remains, as evidenced by substantial holdings and ongoing trading activity in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Bitcoin BTC/USD futures open interest has fallen to its lowest level since August 2024, raising questions about institutional activity, even as spot ETF volumes and on-chain corporate holdings suggest major players remain engaged. Meanwhile, XRP XRP/USD faces a technical breakdown and a surge in exchange inflows worth $652 million that could push the token below $1 for the first time in months.
Crypto Market Developments
A complicated combination of cautious signals and longer-term structural developments is being navigated by the larger cryptocurrency market. Regarding regulations, U.S. politicians are having difficulty moving forward with a complete bill on the structure of the digital asset market. Industry watchers have cautioned that developments could be “on hold” because of political differences, government deadlock, and the impending midterm elections in November. The Senate Agriculture Committee has approved a version of the measure that focuses on regulating commodities, but the Senate Banking Committee has not yet addressed the securities aspects after calling off a markup session in January.
On a more positive side, blockchain security company PeckShield reports that February saw cryptocurrency losses from scams and hackers drop to their lowest level since March 2025, with only $26.5 million taken across 15 incidents. Tighter risk controls, better real-time monitoring, and the lack of “mega-hacks” (as opposed to the $1.5 billion Bybit vulnerability in February 2025) all contributed to the dramatic drop. Ahead of the planned launch of a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of 2026, the European banking consortium Qivalis, which consists of ING, UniCredit, and BBVA, is currently in advanced negotiations with cryptocurrency exchanges and liquidity providers, indicating ongoing institutional interest in regulated digital currency infrastructure.
Bitcoin Reclaims $68,000
Since retesting $63,000 on Saturday, the price of bitcoin has demonstrated resiliency, rising 10% to almost $69,039. But the story of the derivatives market is more circumspect. The total open interest in bitcoin futures on major exchanges dropped to $32 billion, a 20% decrease from the previous month. In terms of bitcoin, open interest is at its lowest point since August 2024, at about 491,300 BTC. Despite a 50% increase between April and May 2025, the annualized basis rate on Bitcoin monthly futures contracts has also fallen to 2%, well below the neutral band of 5%–10%, and has not been able to maintain bullish levels for the previous 12 months. Some traders are worried that institutional investors might be pulling back as a result of this.
However, there is still little evidence to support a complete institutional withdrawal. Publicly traded firms including Strategy, MARA Holdings, and Metaplanet own more than $79 billion in Bitcoin on-chain, while spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to trade more than $3 billion daily on average. The United Arab Emirates, Bhutan, and El Salvador are among the countries that have increased their exposure to Bitcoin. This ambivalence is reflected in the Bitcoin options market: the $7.5 billion in open interest in CME Bitcoin futures is a clear sign that institutional players have not left the market, and the put-to-call premium at Deribit stayed close to 0.7 on Monday, suggesting that demand for bearish strategies is still muted. Bitcoin is resilient as a fixed-supply store of wealth, according to analysts, despite trading about 45% below its all-time high of $126,200 in October 2025.
XRP Holds Above $1.30
Increased technical and on-chain pressure on XRP (XRP) is expected to bring the token toward $0.95, or maybe below $1, in the coming weeks, according to analysts. Before sellers intervened at a resistance cluster between $1.39 and $1.43, where roughly 1.48 billion XRP were purchased over the previous 30 days, a quick 13% rebound between Saturday and Sunday propelled XRP to $1.43. Since then, the token has declined to about $1.34, trading below the bottom trend line of a symmetrical triangle pattern that has limited price movement since February 1. With the measured goal pointing to $0.95, the breakdown would be validated by a confirmed daily closing below this level. The psychological floor at $1 and additional support levels at $1.20–$1.22 are being closely monitored, but some analysts predict a quick recovery to $1.80–$2.20 if the $1.20 base holds.
The pessimistic outlook is further supported by on-chain statistics from CryptoQuant, which indicates that over 472 million XRP, or roughly $652 million, were moved to Binance in the last week. This was the biggest inflow to a single exchange in February. Over the last three weeks, XRP’s balance on Binance has increased by almost 7%, from 2.55 billion to 2.73 billion tokens. Such inflows show a “defensive posture” from investors and can set the stage for unexpected waves of selling pressure, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost. The short-term picture is still negative until XRP can overcome resistance and buck the trend of increasing exchange supply.
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