Bitcoin nears 2024 lows as options traders pay up for downside protection

Markets Bitcoin nears 2024 lows as options traders pay up for downside protection Bitcoin and ether slid toward key support price levels. DeFi tokens were hit hardest, even as XLM and LIT bucked the broader market weakness. By Oliver Knight , Omkar Godbole | Edited by Sheldon Reback Jun 30, 2026, 10:48 a.m. 3 min read Make preferred on Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Make preferred on Bitcoin price (CoinDesk data) Summary Show Bitcoin and ether tested critical multiyear support levels, with ether at a price it has bounced from twice before and bitcoin near its lowest since late 2024. Open interest in dogecoin jumped to the highest since the October crash, but on negative funding and aggressive selling. BTC puts continued trading at a double-digit premium to calls, signaling demand for downside protection even though volatility indexes are subdued. A handful of tokens are bucking the trend, with stellar (XLM) holding gains from DTCC's Stellar integration news and lighter (LIT) up 23% over the past week on similarities to the outperforming HYPE token. Bitcoin BTC $ 59,251.20 fell 1.5% on Tuesday after failing to hold above $60,000 on Monday. It now trades at $59,250, looking set to challenge the weekend lows of $58,800. Ether (ETH) is down by 1.73% since midnight UTC, trading at $1,580 after failing to break through $1,640. Both assets are now testing critical multiyear support levels. Ether has bounced from this level twice before, in April 2025 and October 2023, while bitcoin is trading around its lowest point since late 2024. A failure to hold would leave both tokens without an obvious floor. The altcoin market saw exaggerated downside on Tuesday, with DeFi tokens ethena (ENA), jupiter (JUP) and ether.fi (ETHFI) all falling between 3.3% and 7.5% as risk appetite continues to wane. The weakness stands in contrast to traditional markets, where U.S. equities have been steady since midnight. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures posted gains of 0.03%, while the Dollar Index (DXY) added 0.25%. Derivatives positioning HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, has gained over 4.3% in the past 24 hours and is the only major token trading noticeably in the green. The rally looks spot-driven, and hasn't excited traders into taking on more derivatives risk for now. Open interest (OI) in HYPE futures remains around 40 million tokens, a level it's held since at least June 22. While overall positioning stays light, it leans bullish. Annualized funding rates are sitting close to 10%, a sign that perpetual futures are trading above the spot price. The biggest OI gainer of the past 24 hours among major cryptocurrencies is DOGE $ 0.07234 , the largest memecoin by market value. Open interest has jumped to 16 billion tokens, the highest since the Oct. 10 crash and up from 13 billion a day earlier. The inflows look bearish rather than bullish, however, given the negative funding rates and negative 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta. The CVD signals that sellers are the more aggressive side, hitting sell orders to cross the spread and fill their bearish bets at the best available bid. Bitcoin, ether and XRP futures markets offer little excitement, with open interest locked in recent ranges. Positioning in SOL remains elevated, with OI near record highs, a signal of potential volatility ahead. Volatility indexes continue to point to market calm. BTC's 30-day implied volatility gauge, BVIV, dropped by 11% to 44% on Monday and has held around that level since. Ether's equivalent index, EVIV, is telling the same story. On Deribit, BTC puts continue to trade at a 10%-plus premium to calls across all time frames, a sign of persistent downside concerns. ETH shows a similar pattern at the short end — weekly puts carry a comparable premium — while further out puts are noticeably cheaper than calls. Block flows featured a BTC short straddle, an options strategy that profits from low volatility and price consolidation. Token talk Native DeFi tokens struggled on Tuesday, and the negative sentiment didn't stop there. AI tokens FET, TAO and RENDER all fell, as did privacy coins zcash (ZEC) and monero (XMR). Even hyperliquid (HYPE), which has outperformed its peers in recent weeks, is trading at $65.3 after dropping by 2.2% on Tuesday. HYPE's chart appears to be in more of a consolidation phase after last month's rally as opposed to a corrective phase, this is characterized by two higher highs alongside two higher lows. One token in the black on Tuesday is stellar lumens (XLM). The token forked from Ripple in 2014 is maintaining bullish sentiment after DTCC, the largest U.S. financial markets clearinghouse, said it will connect its tokenized securities platform to the Stellar network in the first half of 2027. The announcement spurred a 100% rally in late May. Another token bucking the trend is lighter (LIT), which is benefiting from its similarities to HYPE in that it is the native token of a decentralized perpetual exchange. LIT is up by 23% over the past week, notching a double-digit gain in the past 24 hours alone. 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