Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $92,000 during the overnight trade, revisiting levels that have proven resilient multiple times since December. However, the latest move comes with a notable uptick in perpetual futures open interest and price action that indicates seller dominance.

The number of open futures bets or open interest in the BTC/USDT pair trading on Binance rose by roughly 12,000 BTC (worth over $1 billion) as BTC’s price fell from $96,000 to under $92,000, according to data tracked by Coinglass.

An uptick in open interest alongside a price decline is said to represent an influx of bearish short positions. In other words, traders likely opened fresh shorts as the price dropped, perhaps in anticipation of an extended sell-off.

The cumulative volume delta (CVD) across both futures and spot markets on the exchange was already negative and has deepened further with the price drop, indicating that selling pressure has outpaced buying activity.

The CVD measures the net capital flows into the market, where positive and rising figures indicate buyer dominance, while negative values reflect increased selling pressure.

BTC chalks out bearish marubozu candle

Bitcoin dropped 4.86% on Monday with sellers dominating the price action throughout the day.

That’s reflected in the shape of Monday’s candlestick, which features negligible upper and lower shadows and a prominent red body. In other words, opening and closing prices are almost the same, a sign buyers had little say in the price action.

Technical analysts categorize this as a bearish marubozu pattern. The appearance of the bearish candlestick while prices hover below key 50- and 100-day simple moving averages (SMA) may embolden sellers, potentially leading to deeper losses.

Support (S) is seen near $89,200, the Jan. 13 low, followed by the 200-day SMA at $81,661. On the flip side, the Feb. 21 high of around $99,520 is the level to beat (R).

Crypto majors slid as much as 14% in the past 24 hours as a Monday sell-off extended into Tuesday amid generally bearish sentiment and the lack of actionable catalysts that may help support the market.

Solana’s SOL fell 14% — bringing 7-day losses to over 20% — while dogecoin (DOGE), xrp (XRP) and ether (ETH) fell more than 8%. Bitcoin lost the $92,000 level for the first time since late November, threatening a potential downside break of the multi-week consolidation between $90,000 and $110,000

Overall market capitalization fell 6.6%, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index tracking the largest tokens, dropped more than 7%.

Traders said the current bearish sentiment could be overblown and macroeconomic decisions were key to support market growth.

“Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana shouldn’t be trading this far below their all time highs,” Jeff Mei, COO at crypto exchange BTSE, said in a Telegram message. “On the U.S. side, inflation concerns and a pause in Fed rate cuts have kept markets down, but this could change as weak economic data released last week could spur Fed officials to take further action.”

Augustine Fan, head of insights at SignalPlus, mirrored the sentiment: “The ‘slowdown’ narrative will likely dominate the narrative in the near term, with stocks and bonds trading back in positive tandem with correlation nearing the highs of the past 12 months.”

Fan explained that the «bad data is now good» once again, as markets refocus their attention on Fed eases, and provide tailwinds to both gold and BTC in the near future.

Data released early this month showed, the widely-watched Consumer Price Index (CPI) surged 0.5% month-over-month in January, much more than the expected 0.3% gain, sending investors to prefer cash positions or risk-off bets until clear signs of a government intervention to boost the economy.

The U.S. CPI measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Changes in CPI readings tend to impact bitcoin, and the broader crypto market, as investors view the asset class as a hedge against inflation.