Bitcoin loses $77,000, ether, solana slide as Hormuz standoff lifts oil to 3-week high

Bitcoin traded at $76,923 on Tuesday morning, down 2.4% over 24 hours after rejecting $79,400 the previous day, with the entire top 10 closing red as Brent crude extended its rally to a seventh straight day.

What to know:

• Bitcoin has been rejected near $79,000 three times in eight sessions, leaving the level as the de facto ceiling of its current trading range even as major cryptocurrencies trade lower over the past day.
• Analysts are split on whether the latest rally is driven by renewed spot demand from retail and institutions or by a short squeeze in derivatives markets, with negative funding rates suggesting both squeezes and their unwinding remain in play.
• Upcoming Federal Reserve policy decisions and megacap tech earnings this week could provide the catalyst to push bitcoin decisively above $80,000, or else cement the recent rejections as a durable top of the range.

Bitcoin has been rejected at $79,000 three times in eight sessions. The level is now defining the range.

Bitcoin traded at $76,923 on Tuesday morning, down 2.4% over 24 hours after climbing to $79,399 on Monday and reversing through the day. Ether fell 3.7% to $2,290, XRP slipped 3.2% to $1.39, Solana dropped 3.9% to $84.10, and BNB declined 1.8% to $625. The whole top 10 closed red on 24 hours outside Tron and Dogecoin.

Brent crude rose 1% to above $109 a barrel, extending its rally to a seventh day after Iran's interim deal proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz failed to advance over the weekend. The White House said US officials were discussing the latest Iranian proposal but maintained "red lines" on any deal to end the eight-week war.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed, with Japanese stocks supported by the Bank of Japan's 6-3 split decision to keep policy unchanged. The yen strengthened 0.3% to around 159 per dollar.

Two readings of the bitcoin tape are circulating among market analysts.

Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital said in a note that US retail investors have returned to the market and the combination of retail demand, institutional capital, and limited supply creates the foundation for further upside. Santiment data shows whales accumulated more than 40,000 BTC over the past two weeks, and the firm flagged a sharp shift in sentiment from fear to fear-of-missing-out over a short period.

Analysis firm CryptoQuant takes the opposite view. Founder Ki Young-Ju said in an X post that bitcoin's push above $79,000 was driven primarily by a short squeeze in the derivatives market rather than sustained spot demand, and that large-scale short covering leaves the market vulnerable to a reversal once the squeeze exhausts.

Funding rates on perpetual futures across major exchanges remain negative on a 7-day basis at -0.13% per Coinglass, meaning shorts are still paying longs to hold positions, the pattern that historically precedes both squeezes and the unwinding of squeezes.

The two views are not mutually exclusive. Spot demand from retail and institutions can be returning at the same time that the rally toward $79,000 was front-loaded by short covering. The test is whether the next attempt at the level brings fresh spot bids or runs out of shorts to squeeze.

Corporate accumulation continues regardless. Strategy bought $3.9 billion of bitcoin in April per Bloomberg, the firm's largest monthly accumulation in a year.

Japanese company Metaplanet announced a $50 million bond issuance Tuesday to finance new bitcoin purchases, the latest in a series of yen-denominated debt deals the firm has used to build one of the largest corporate bitcoin treasuries outside the US.

The week's catalysts arrive Wednesday and Thursday.

The Federal Reserve announces its policy decision Wednesday with traders pricing higher odds of a rate cut after the Justice Department closed its probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Megacap tech earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta on Wednesday and Apple on Thursday represent roughly a quarter of the S&P 500's market capitalization.

Either the Fed or a strong earnings beat could provide the catalyst needed to push bitcoin through $80,000. Without one, the third rejection from the level starts to define the upper end of the range rather than precede a breakout.

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