Leading Crypto Exchanges See Negative Funding Rates, Have The Bears Taken Over?

Prices have been declining across the crypto market and with it has come to a lot of doubt on the part of investors. This is reflected in the deposit and withdrawal trends recorded across the various crypto exchanges. One of these has been the funding rates which had remained flat for the better part of the first half of 2022. However, there has now been some movement in the funding rates and it is unfortunately not for the better.

Funding Rates Turn Negative

Two leading crypto exchanges have seen negative crypto funding rates for the past week. Binance and ByBit consistently appear on the top of the list for the exchanges with the most trading volume and have become a natural home for perpetual traders. That is why changes across these platforms can be significant to market movements.

Related Reading | Holding Back The Bears: Why Bitcoin Must Break $22,500

Funding rates have been fluctuating at and below neutral for the better part of the month but the latter looks to have finally won out. After bitcoin had dropped below $20,000 last week, expectations had been that more traders would want to get in given the low prices. However, it has gone the other way as average funding rates are now in the negative.

Both Binance and ByBit have recorded average funding rates of -0.0015 for last week. A significant drop from the neutral 0.01% average aggregated funding rates. What this shows is that the bearish sentiment among the perp traders has been growing. As such, they have been leaning towards short traders.

Funding rates turn negative | Source: Arcane Research

It comes hot on the heels of open interest reaching a new high. Most of which have come from both Binance and ByBit. These two metrics expressly show that short traders are more active compared to their long counterparts.

Crypto Sentiment Still Bad

Crypto perp traders are not the only ones that are currently bearish on the market. The same is the case across the space where investors have chosen to hold their cards closer to their chest than they normally would. The Fear & Greed Index puts the crypto market sentiment in the extreme fear territory for another day yet again. Meaning that the market has now closed out two consecutive months with the extreme fear sentiment.

Total market cap falls below $900 billion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

This is apparent in the exchange inflows and outflows, both of which have declined in the last couple of days. However, the ratio of inflows to outflows shows that investors are refusing to take any risk in the market. Bitcoin’s net flows came out to -$29.7 million after outflows had touched $901.6 million for the past day, according to Glassnode.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Records Worst Performance For June, Will It Get Better From Here?

Tether inflows have remained muted as investors are sentiment less money into exchanges to purchase tokens. With positive net flow only coming out to $14.2 million for the past day. Sell-offs have also continued, threatening to drag the market even lower.

Featured image from Analytics Insight, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

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