Bitcoin dips to $91,000 amid rising U.S. trade tensions, triggering a market selloff – Crypto Markets Today

Bitcoin Retreats as Asia-Led Selling Hits Crypto Markets

Bitcoin erased last week’s gains as a wave of Asia-driven selling weighed on the crypto market alongside declining U.S. equity futures. BTC traded at $90,258, reversing all of last week’s rally from $98,000.

Most of the selling occurred during the Asia session, with prices beginning to tumble around 01:15 UTC and consolidating by 07:00 UTC. Privacy-focused coins were hit particularly hard, with Monero (XMR) down 9% to $515 and Dash (DASH) falling 3% to $69.44, reflecting waning trader interest after a strong start to the year.

Tuesday’s selloff in crypto mirrored losses in U.S. equity futures. Nasdaq 100 futures fell more than 1.9% since Sunday evening, while S&P 500 futures dropped 1.6%. Analysts attribute the downturn to lingering jitters from Monday, as the EU and U.S. continue to threaten tariffs amid tensions over Greenland.

Safe-haven assets extended their rallies, with gold and silver climbing to record highs.

Derivatives Activity Highlights

• Over $360 million in crypto futures positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, predominantly from bullish bets.
• Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility (BVIV) rose to 42% from 39.7%, signaling renewed demand for options and hedging strategies.
• U.S. Treasury note volatility edged up slightly from multi-year lows, though it remains well below November levels, suggesting potential for increased risk aversion if bond market volatility continues to rise.
• DOGE, ZEC, and ADA led declines in futures open interest, signaling capital outflows, while BTC futures open interest remained stable.
• Funding rates across most major tokens are still positive, indicating a bullish bias, although ZEC and TRX funding rates are deeply negative, reflecting dominance of short positions.
• On Deribit, put options for both BTC and Ether (ETH $3,000.50) are trading above calls, reflecting ongoing downside concerns. On decentralized platform Derive, traders price a 30% probability of BTC falling below $80,000.

Altcoins Struggle Amid Market Weakness

The lower-liquidity altcoin market underperformed Bitcoin, with Ethereum and Solana (SOL $130.22) down more than 3%. DeFi tokens AERO and SKY were particularly hard hit, losing over 5.5% in 24 hours.

The memecoin sector also weakened, with the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) falling 3.91%, underperforming other benchmarks.

Market participants are now closely watching Bitcoin’s next move. If BTC consolidates between $85,000 and $95,000, altcoins could stabilize and select sectors may show resilience. However, a sustained drop below $85,000 could trigger heavy losses across the altcoin market, as liquidity has yet to recover from October’s $19 billion liquidation cascade.