Crypto market drops as Nasdaq tech selloff spills into digital assets

Jun 23, 2026, 10:45 a.m. 3 min readBitcoin price (CoinDesk data)SummaryDerivatives signal growing bearish conviction with indications that sellers are in control at most of the top 25 coins.Options market structure heading into Friday's quarterly expiry is skewed long calls, but those bullish bets are underwater as spot prices have collapsed through the quarter.Privacy coins DASH and XMR bucked the selloff, losing less than 1%, while the average crypto RSI sits at 39.05, in oversold territory, leaving room for a potential relief rally.The crypto market fell on Tuesday, with bitcoin BTC$62,194.91 trading at $62,300, having lost 2.5% since midnight UTC, while ether (ETH) tumbled by more than 4% to $1,650.The selloff follows Monday's downturn in technology stocks, with another day in the red foreshadowed by Nasdaq 100 futures, which have cratered by 2.5% since midnight.Tech stocks are struggling due to profit-taking and the risk of higher bond yields, according to Patrick Munnelly, market strategy partner at TickMill.Altcoins performed worse than bitcoin and ether, with tokens such as ethena (ENA) and hype (HYPE) losing 5%-6% and $717 million in liquidations across the market spurring exaggerated downswings. The Dollar Index (DXY) rose to its highest level in more than a year, hitting 101.15, the most since May 2025.Derivatives positioningThe most notable data point in derivatives is the 10% surge in open interest (OI) in SpaceX perpetuals listed on Hyperliquid, Binance and other exchanges while the price has dropped by 15%. This combination validates the downtrend and suggests the deployment of leverage on the short side. The OI increase is the highest among major tokens, a clear sign of a raised preference for trading traditional assets over blockchain rails. SpaceX futures are also now the sixth-largest in the world, ahead of several prominent coins such as ZEC, but still behind BTC, ETH, XRP, and others.XRP futures open interest increased to 2.38 billion tokens, revisiting eight-month highs. These continued capital flows come alongside a near 2% drop in the token for the week, and follow last week's 5% slide. As with SpaceX, this combination validates the downtrend. Even more so, in fact, because the OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) is negative for the second straight day, a sign of price action being led by traders shorting at market prices rather than passive limit orders.Traders continue to scale back exposure to BTC futures. Open interest has slipped to 720K BTC from 742K BTC last week. It hit a peak of 800K BTC early this month. In ether, futures OI has bounced up from five-week lows to 14.13 million ETH, but overall positioning remains light compared with the peak of 15.98 million ETH on May 28.Broadly speaking, sellers seem to be dominant across most of the top 25 coins. Most of these coins have negative OI-adjusted 24-hour CVD.Traders are also likely to keep an eye on bitcoin's 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, which has turned higher from 40%. The increase suggests higher demand for options. Ether's volatility index, EVIV, is displaying a similar pattern. Upswings in volatility indexes are typically a feature of bearish price trends.In the options market, the structure is long calls (or bullish bets) heading into the quarterly expiry on Friday. However, these long positions are sitting on losses, given the collapse in spot prices throughout the quarter. In the meantime, put options, or downside bets, are sitting in the money or in profit.Put-call skews show the market continues to pay for downside protection, a sign of persistent, cautious sentiment.Token talkPrivacy coins dash (DASH) and monero (XMR) showed strength despite Tuesday's crypto selloff, with DASH losing just 0.2% since midnight and XMR about 0.7%The same cannot be said zcash (ZEC), a rival privacy coin that was hit by an AI-inspired exploit earlier this month. ZEC lost 4.2% over the same period, falling in line with the broader altcoin market.AI tokens FET, RENDER and TAO also struggled, dropping 3%-5% as negative sentiment from tech stocks spilled over into crypto.One positive for investors is that the average crypto relative strength index (RSI) is currently at 39.05, suggesting "oversold" conditions that could pave the way for a bounce or a relief rally over the course of the day.Related Assets12345678910