Bitcoin pulls back to $64,000 after hitting monthly high as bears take control

Markets Bitcoin pulls back to $64,000 after hitting monthly high as bears take control Profit-taking after bitcoin hit a $65,500 monthly high combined with fresh Iranian strikes on U.S. bases sent crypto lower, with bears leading price action across most tokens. By Oliver Knight , Omkar Godbole | Edited by Sheldon Reback Jul 16, 2026, 10:35 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 retreated to $64,000 after hitting a monthly high of $65,500 on Wednesday as profit-taking and Iranian strikes on U.S. military bases in the Gulf triggered declines. Bears are leading price action across most altcoins, with negative cumulative volume deltas pointing to market-order selling. Open interest in XRP futures climbed to a 10-day high alongside a price decline, a combination that typically signals growing bearish exposure. MORPHO was the standout, rising 3.5% as it targets the $2.20 resistance level. Robinhood Chain memecoin CASHCAT drew attention as its market cap retreated to $91 million having hit $220 million in its first week. The crypto market is facing a wave of sell pressure with bitcoin BTC $ 64,215.37 and ether (ETH) losing 1.1% and 1.7%, respectively, since midnight UTC. The shift to the downside comes after bitcoin rose to a monthly high of $65,500 on Wednesday, prompting some traders to take profits. Altcoins PUMP and ZEC also declined, falling 4.4% each after Tuesday’s strong rallies faded, highlighting a lack of liquidity in both directions. U.S. equities also lost ground. Futures on tech stock-dominant Nasdaq 100 index retreated by 0.25%, extending a downtrend that began 30 days ago. One of the main catalysts for price action across all asset classes is the war in Middle East, with Iran launching attacks on U.S. military bases in neighboring Gulf states on Thursday and the U.S. continuing its wave of airstrikes. Derivatives positioning Ether's price has dropped by 1.7% since midnight UTC, slightly more than the decline in bitcoin. ETH's underperformance seems driven by bullish plays unwinding rather than aggressive new short selling. That’s evident from the decline in open interest (OI) to 14.35 million ETH from the five-week high of 14.45 million ETH hit Wednesday. Futures tied to BTC show similar dynamics. Meanwhile, OI in XRP rose to a 10-day high of 2.21 billion XRP alongside a 0.6% drop in the spot price. This combination is taken to represent a growing bias for bearish exposure, although XRP’s positive funding rates contradict that interpretation. That said, the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) for XRP is negative, meaning short plays are being executed at market orders rather than passive limit orders. Another notable open interest gainer is SUI, the native token of the Sui blockchain. Positions have increased by 15%, although the total OI of 654 million tokens remains in line with levels seen earlier this week. The SUI token has dropped almost 2% over 24 hours. Broadly speaking, most coins, except BTC, ETH and XMR, have a negative 24 hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), a sign of bears leading the price action. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied or expected volatility index is up 2% at 38%. Volatility tends to be mean-reverting, and, historically, sub-40% readings have consistently presaged renewed market turbulence. In Deribit-listed options, there has been a notable rise in both trading volume and open interest in BTC calls at $70,000 and $72,000 strikes. This likely reflects a large bull call spread that crossed the tape recently. The strategy bets that prices will rally to $72,000 by the end of July. In ETH’s case, the end-July expiry call at the $2,300 strike is the most traded bet of the past 24 hours. A call represents a bullish bet on the market. Token talk Artificial intelligence token MORPHO $ 2.1046 defied bearish crypto price action on Thursday, rising by 3.5% since midnight as it looks to test the $2.20 level of resistance, which caused a rejection and subsequent drop to $1.85 on July 2. The rest of the altcoin market tracked bitcoin and ether, with coins including HYPE, SOL and ENA losing 1.3%-1.8% since midnight while NEAR, JUP and DASH posted steeper losses. CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is still range-bound, currently at 48/100 after losing its perch at 58/100 on Monday as investors switched focus back to bitcoin. One recent area of interest in the altcoin sphere has been memecoins, notably tokens launched on Robinhood’s new blockchain. One, cashcat (CASHCAT), rose from relative obscurity to a $220 million market cap in its first week of Robinhood Chain going live. It has since fallen back to a $91 million market cap despite maintaining around $60 million in daily trading volume. 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By CoinDesk Research Jul 13, 2026 CEX trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot climbing 15.3% to $1.11T and RWA perpetual volumes surging to a record $311B. Why it matters : CEX trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot climbing 15.3% to $1.11T and RWA perpetual volumes surging to a record $311B. View Full Report More From Markets Live updates: ZachXBT calls hardware wallets complete garbage; BTC steady after Korea rate hike A bitcoin wallet dormant since the 2017 peak just moved $383 million Ether outruns bitcoin as ETF money returns, almost all of from BlackRock's fund More From Bitcoin Tether invests $20 million in Argentine neobank Ualá as it expands Latin America push U.S. adds four Iran central bank crypto wallets to sanctions, Tether freezes $131 million of contents Live updates: ZachXBT calls hardware wallets complete garbage; BTC steady after Korea rate hike