Bitcoin (BTC) price and futures market sentiment have decoupled

This index contracted from November 2024 to February 2025, while Bitcoin rose above $100,000.

CryptoQuant data has revealed a lack of correlation between Bitcoin’s price and sentiment in the futures market in recent days.

The futures sentiment index, which tracks the relative optimism or pessimism of leveraged traders in the derivatives market, has remained contracted. This index contracted from November 2024 to February 2025, while Bitcoin rose above $100,000.

Image: CryptoQuant

The indicator rose to a high level and then started to decline to demonstrate that futures trading is showing initial signs of indecisiveness.

"The chart shows that while Bitcoin reached significant highs, futures sentiment weakened, which can be a signal of potential retracement or at least a lack of strong bullish conviction."

Since February 2025, the sentiment has declined while keeping the BTC price in the $70,000 to $80,000 range. The chart shows that the index is coming back to its long-term support in the area of 0.4.

This weakness in relative sentiment despite robust price rises means that there are likely short-term price corrections ahead.

Futures Sentiment Index Is Still Down

The future sentiment index is still down from recent highs and providing a more notably declining line on the chart. Some analysts have attributed this to increased risk aversion or profit-taking among investors. Some other contributors to lower levels of confidence in the derivatives market might be uncertainty in the regulatory environment or macroeconomic tension.

Support and Resistance Levels Offer Sentiment Clues

The sentiment index in the past has remained confined to certain ranges, with resistance around 0.8 and support close to 0.2. Current market values are slightly above the support level, suggesting significantly higher expectations from leveraged traders. These levels have played several roles in the past, primarily serving as lower support before consolidation or even a brief pullback.

While Bitcoin has steadily surged over to late 2024, the failure to see this reflected in sentiment indicates a lack of sustainable support by institutional actors in the futures market. The lack of a repeat of buying volumes from this segment limits further upside potential other than a new trigger.

The average BTC price has pulled back from its recent high and is in a consolidation zone. The current range extends between $ 70,000 and $ 80,000 based on further weakening sentiment data. This range-bound behavior is an indication that the investors are in a wait-and-see mode and, by large, holders and funds.

Over $168 Million in Bitcoin Leaves Antpool

This news comes as Antpool, a major Bitcoin mining pool, did a double sale of 2,009 BTC in two successive transactions, amounting to more than 168 million dollars. Whale Alert monitored these transactions, the first batch of some 1,009 BTC to a wallet starting with “3BHXy” and the second of 1,000 BTC to “3EDgaJ.” Neither of these wallets connects to exchanges, leading to speculation as to whether or not the coins will be sold.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 1,009 #BTC (84,472,716 USD) transferred from #Antpool to unknown wallethttps://t.co/O7nj0NFkDZ

Such movements from mining pools may cause market alerts because they may indicate that miners are preparing to offload their positions.

🚨 🚨 برابر 1,000 #BTC (83,511,377 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Antpoolhttps://t.co/ObOFOb9X7c

The timing fuels the concern, given that this is when Bitcoin fails to breach the $84000 various resistance levels. If such a trend persists, traders said there is potential for BTC to come back down to below $70,000. However, if prices break out above $84,000, the opportunity for $90,000 can be considered under strong bulls.