Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin, Ether Drop as Selling Pressure Returns

Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin, Ether Drop as Selling Pressure ReturnsBitcoin and Ethereum fell sharply Tuesday, erasing weekend gains as traders assessed whether the market’s bounce formed a lower high. Oct 21, 2025, 12:00 p.m

Potential lower high flashes bear market warning (Daniel Mirlea/Unsplash modified by CoinDesk)

The crypto market succumbed to selling pressure on Tuesday, with bitcoin BTC$109,490.10 and ether ETH$3,912.99 falling back from relative safety into a zone that could see the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value challenge multimonth lows.

BTC is trading at $107,800 while ETH is at $3,867 having bounced over the weekend then giving back gains on Tuesday.

Analysts will now be assessing whether the crypto market formed a “lower high” pattern and will continue to decline. The next sign would be if bitcoin slides below the Oct. 17 low of $103,700.

Derivatives Positioning

• The bitcoin futures market is showing a measured recovery, with open interest increasing to $26.06 billion as traders gradually re-engage.
• The three-month annualized basis remains stable within the neutral-to-bullish 5%-6% range. Significantly, funding rates have flipped back to mostly neutral or positive, indicating that the short-side conviction seen previously has cleared. OKX is currently leading this shift with a high positive rate of 7.51%.
• The BTC options market is strongly bullish, underpinned by the increasing expectation of future price swings. The implied volatility term structure is upward sloping, signaling that the market expects volatility to increase over time.
• Concurrently, the 25-delta skew is rising across all timeframes, and now exceeds 11.86%. This high positive skew confirms that traders are paying a large premium for upside exposure — call options — reflecting significant conviction for a sustained rally, despite the near-neutral 24-hour put-call volume, which is 49%-51% in favor of puts.
• Coinglass data shows $320 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 76%-24% split between longs and shorts. BTC ($88 million), ETH ($85 million) and others ($33 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
• The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $112,300 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price rise.

Token TalkBy Oliver Knight

• South Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb listed a number of lower market cap tokens on Tuesday, prompting a series of explosive moves to the upside.
• Upbit significantly added F$0.01644 with won and dollar trading pairs. SynFutures is a decentralized derivatives exchange that hopes to rival HyperLiquid and Aster.
• F climbed more than 50% after the listing before giving back some of the gains. Trading volume increased by 669% to more than $200 million.
• Bithumb, meanwhile, listed ZORA and RECALL. The former rallied by more than 10% while RECALL moved in line with the broader market.
• The increases following the listings bucked the altcoin market trend on Tuesday, with several assets facing double-digit moves to the downside. The CoinDesk 80 Index fell 4.5% in the past 24 hours.
• CAKE and ETHFI both lost 10% while ETH, BNB and SOL all dropped 4%-5% as negative sentiment crept back into the market.
• Traders are now analyzing whether the market’s bounce over the weekend formed a lower high, which is indicative of a bearish trend and potential bear market reversal following fresh record highs less than a month ago.

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