Key Takeaways
Bitcoin’s Futures market sentiment index drops to 36% entering the bearish territory. Retail bearishness dominates Futures and spot market as a drop to $112k looms.
Since hitting $124k, Bitcoin [BTC] has declined for five consecutive days, hitting a local low of $114,442. In fact, at press time, Bitcoin was trading at $115,055, marking a 3.24% drop over the past week.
Amid this sharp drop, Futures are slowly turning bearish, and that might not be a good thing for BTC. Here’s the reason why.
Bitcoin Futures look bearish
According to CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler, Bitcoin’s Sentiment Index on the Futures market has declined to 36%. With this drop, the index now sits significantly below the neutral zone or bearish territory.
Source: CryptoQuant
Typically, a drop of this index drops below 45 suggests that most traders are becoming more risk-averse and are expecting lower prices. Thus, Futures are experiencing fear-driven activity that could fuel further downside.
Historically, Futures sentiment has played a significant role in Bitcoin’s price movement. For instance, on the 11th to the 14th of August, when the Sentiment Index jumped to 70%, Bitcoin’s price surged to $123k.
Therefore, the recent drop implies that bounces will be offloaded, resulting in price fluctuations. Under these circumstances, Adler suggests that Bitcoin will face downward risk, even dropping to $112k.
Retailers are driving bearishness
AMBCrypto’s look at the Futures market showed that retail traders dominated and look extremely bearish.
For starters, Futures Average Order Size data from CryptoQuant showed massive retail orders.
Source: CryptoQuant
These small-scale participants are mainly shorting the market. According to Coinglass, Bitcoin’s Long Short Ratio declined to 0.8765, with shorts accounting for 53%.
Source: CoinGlass
At the same time, long positions accounted for 46.7% of the total Futures contracts. Often, when shorts dominate, it indicates that most participants are betting on prices to decline, a clear bearish sign.
Selling activity intensifies too
With retail traders in the Futures market being bearish, they are aggressively offloading their holdings on the spot market.
Source: CryptoQuant
According to CryptoQuant, the Bitcoin Taker Buy Sell Ratio has declined for five consecutive days, hitting a 2-week low. Such a sustained drop implies that most market participants are aggressively selling their BTC.
As a result, the crypto’s Scarcity has declined significantly, dropping to 41k BTC from a monthly high of $53k BTC.
Source: CryptoQuant
Typically, when BTC scarcity declines, it means there are more tokens readily available for immediate selling. Lower scarcity often precedes reduced prices, especially if demand fails to keep pace with rising supply.
More losses ahead for BTC?
Bitcoin experienced a sustained decline as retailers turned bearish in the Futures and spot markets.
As a result, the king coin’s Stochastic RSI declined to 10, reaching extremely oversold territory. At the same time, the Relative Strength Index dropped to 44.
Source: TradingView
Typically, when momentum indicators drop to such levels, it indicates strong downward momentum and the potential for trend continuation.
Having said that, if retail continues selling and shorting the market, BTC could test the $112k support, as predicted by Adler.
However, if too many of them are positioned bearish, we could see a rebound driven by a short squeeze with BTC reclaiming $117k.
