'Waiting for buyers': Bitcoin holds fragile $60K floor ahead of $10.6B quarterly expiry

Bitcoin is grinding toward what analysts say is its most consequential technical juncture in months, weighed down by $469 million in single-day exchange-traded fund outflows, a deeply negative gamma profile, and a $10.6 billion quarterly options expiry on Friday that some say could break the range in either direction.

The foremost cryptocurrency fell as low as $59,000 on June 24 before recovering slightly to around $61,500, according to The Block's prices page.

Institutional print

SoSoValue data for June 24 shows U.S. spot bitcoin (BTC) ETFs recorded a net outflow of $469 million for the session, with Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF the sole notable exception, pulling in $23.5 million in net inflows.

On the Ethereum (ETH) side, spot ETFs saw $30.2 million in outflows, with Fidelity's FETH accounting for the largest single withdrawal at $15.7 million. The data signals that the ETF picture has deteriorated sharply over the past month.

The seven-day average of U.S. spot ETF net flows has fallen to nearly negative $300 million per day, according to Glassnode, one of the most sustained redemption windows since the products launched.

More than 16,000 BTC have exited Grayscale's GBTC over the last 90 days alone, suggesting the headline weakness is driven by legacy-holder liquidation rather than a broad retreat across the entire product complex.

Bitfinex analysts told The Block the Coinbase premium index, typically representative of taker demand via ETFs and treasury companies, continues to trade deep in negative territory. In their view, it points to a fragile market held up by passive flows against thin liquidity and weak active buying.

Macro backdrop

The U.S. Dollar Index printed 101.37 on June 23, rising back above its 200-day moving average for the first time since April's Liberation Day shock, according to Glassnode.

Rania Gule, senior market analyst at XS.com, argued the DXY's resilience reflects a market repricing around the likelihood that Federal Reserve rates stay elevated well into the second half of the year, reinforced by a Composite PMI reading of 52.2 that signals continued economic expansion.

Thursday's core PCE index print — the Fed's preferred inflation gauge — is now the primary near-term catalyst for the dollar's direction, and by extension, for bitcoin.

Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, framed the session's volatility as a contagion story originating in Seoul, where a 10% plunge in the KOSPI triggered circuit breakers and then spread directly to the Nasdaq.

"Bitcoin's slide toward the $62,000 level is primarily a function of its high-beta relationship to tech equities rather than a localized narrative," Rodda said.

Micron's earnings, released after the Wednesday close, delivered a stronger-than-expected result and robust forward guidance on AI chip demand, which Rodda said could serve as a stabilizer for the risk-off impulse currently weighing on digital assets.

Daniela Hathorn, also a senior market analyst at Capital.com, noted that U.S. futures recovered sharply on Micron's results, with equity sentiment rotating back toward fundamentals as AI-driven earnings continue to outpace rate headwinds.

A stronger dollar and persistent rate expectations mean the next equity leg depends on whether corporate earnings continue to outpace tighter financial conditions.

Options structure

The options setup around Friday's expiry sharpens the technical stakes considerably.

Bitfinex analysts told The Block that net dealer gamma across the market has turned negative at minus 143,000 BTC, placing the entire observed range of $60,000 to $68,266 in dealer-amplified territory.

In a negative gamma regime, market makers hedge with the direction of price movement, buying as it rises, selling as it falls, which amplifies momentum and turns drifts into trends.

The gamma flip, the level at which the dealer book would shift back to volatility-dampening behavior, sits at approximately $68,000 to $70,000. Bitcoin is well below it, The Block’s price page shows.

The June 26 expiry has $10.6 billion in open interest, with roughly 80% of positions out of the money, according to data from both Bitfinex and Deribit. On the Deribit book, BTC options account for $10.5 billion of that notional — 37% of total open interest — against a put/call ratio of 0.83. Ethereum options add a further $1.75 billion, carrying a call-dominant ratio of 0.57.

Jean-David Pequignot, chief commercial officer at Deribit, opined that the defining tension heading into the expiry is a divergence between depressed sentiment and rebuilding positioning.

Funding rates have ticked to a two-week high, and open interest is recovering — the classic fingerprint of fresh leveraged longs being put to work in weakness — even as the Crypto Fear and Greed Index sits pinned between 20 and 23.

The put wall at $60,000, anchored by approximately $450 million of June 26 puts, constitutes the structural floor, the Bitfinex analysts told The Block.

A sustained break below it would push the market deeper into negative gamma and raise the probability of a cascade toward $54,000-$56,000, near the Realized Price. The max pain level of $74,000 carries no gravitational pull, while spot remains below the gamma flip, they argued.

On the upside, a squeeze toward $66,000 to $68,000 is capped by offers and the flip itself. Pequignot said the expiry is mechanically significant regardless of direction. At settlement, out-of-the-money strikes expire worthless, unwinding the gamma contributions that have defined the range that includes the $60,000 put wall.

The dealer book then reconstitutes around front-month contracts at wherever spot is trading.

Whether a new structural floor forms at $60,000 after expiry depends entirely on whether participants buy fresh downside protection in the days that follow. If they do not, that level is defended solely by spot demand.

Onchain: deep in discount territory

Glassnode's analysis shows the market trading at a 19% discount to the True Market Mean of $77,000. The Short-Term Holder Cost Basis has declined to $71,400, reflecting new buyers accumulating well below the cyclical mean. It may be a constructive development, Glassnode argues, as a step toward the formation of a bottom.

The 90-day moving average of Net Realized Profit and Loss is negative $205 million per day, confirming that loss realization has been the prevailing force in the broader trend and that the market's center of gravity remains tilted toward the Realized Price of $53,400.

The most immediate overhead resistance sits between $66,800 and $70,700, a dense cluster of short-term holder supply accumulated at a loss, which likely represents the ceiling for any near-term bounce.

Where buyers are — and aren't

Analysts at Yield Basis, a decentralized liquidity protocol, argued that the demand question extends beyond the mechanics of the current cycle. "Bitcoin needs new liquidity and buyers to grow," the firm wrote in a note. "The next phase of growth could come from institutional investors allocating their AI profits here."

Capital rotating out of AI positions and into bitcoin remains a possibility as a structural catalyst, but is yet absent.

Mike McCluskey, co-founder of tx, said that the recent sell-off's origins lie outside crypto entirely and stem from a semiconductor correction that migrated from the KOSPI into the Nasdaq and then into digital assets.

Despite hundreds of millions in long liquidations, funding rates remained broadly neutral throughout the descent, pointing to a market with fragile conviction being stress-tested by an external shock rather than a breakdown in crypto-specific fundamentals.

Entities, including Strive and Strategy, used the dip to increase their holdings by several hundred BTC, McCluskey noted, signaling that sophisticated buyers are stepping in as sentiment hits extreme fear.

Bitcoin's 200-week moving average, the level that has historically served as a structural floor during prior bear markets, is now in range. Whether it holds on spot demand alone, rather than options architecture, will be the first test of this expiry's aftermath.

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