In a muted trading environment, Bitcoin and ether advance while altcoins underperform.

Bitcoin and ether posted modest overnight gains, but thin altcoin breadth, heavy liquidations and continued demand for short-term hedges suggest market participants remain cautious.

Bitcoin rose roughly 0.9%, trading around $67,000 after briefly dipping to $66,000 on Wednesday. Ether climbed a similar amount to near $1,970, rebounding from $1,924 yet still unable to convincingly reclaim the $2,000 psychological mark.

Since the sharp selloff on Feb. 5, volatility has cooled. Two weeks of sideways price action have left investors debating whether the current lull represents a base-building phase ahead of a broader recovery into 2025, or simply a pause before another move lower.

A Mar-a-Lago forum hosted by World Liberty Financial on Wednesday failed to deliver a bullish catalyst, despite attendance by CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and senior executives from Goldman Sachs.

From a technical standpoint, bitcoin remains in a broader downtrend after peaking near $126,600 in early October. The chart structure continues to show lower highs and lower lows, interspersed with periods of choppy consolidation.

Derivatives backdrop

Open interest has steadied at $15.38 billion, signaling a shift from forced deleveraging to a more balanced market structure.

Retail sentiment has shown slight improvement, with funding rates turning flat to mildly positive — Binance funding has returned to roughly 4%. Institutional positioning, however, remains measured, as the three-month annualized basis holds near 3%.

In options markets, call and put volumes are now evenly split. The one-week 25-delta skew has edged up to 12%, while the implied volatility curve remains in short-term backwardation. Elevated front-end implied volatility indicates traders are still paying a premium for near-term protection, even as longer-dated volatility stabilizes around 49%.

Data from CoinGlass shows $218 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with 77% of those tied to long positions. Bitcoin accounted for $75 million in liquidations, ether for $53 million and other tokens for $22 million. Binance’s liquidation heatmap identifies $67,400 as a key level to monitor if prices push higher.

Altcoin pressure

Altcoins are feeling the strain in the current low-liquidity environment.

WLFI dropped more than 10% in a classic “sell-the-news” reaction following Wednesday’s event. Axie Infinity’s AXS token is retesting its Feb. 6 lows after falling 5.9% since midnight UTC. Lending protocol Morpho’s MORPHO token has erased Wednesday’s gains, trading near $1.39 after shedding 4.2% overnight.

Market breadth remains weak, with 97 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies — excluding stablecoins and tokenized gold tokens — trading in negative territory over the past 24 hours.

Sentiment continues to reflect caution. The crypto fear and greed index stands at 11 out of 100, up from February’s low of 6, but still firmly entrenched in “extreme fear” territory.