Traders Turn Bearish on Bitcoin Following High-Profile Political Tensions, Data Shows

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped sharply over the past 24 hours, nearing the $100,000 mark with an intraday low of $100,984. This price movement reflects increased volatility across the crypto market following a public exchange on social media between US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Their clash appears to have triggered a wave of risk-off sentiment among traders. In response, the global crypto market cap slipped 4%, falling from over $3.4 trillion yesterday to $3.33 trillion. Meanwhile, the broader market correction has not gone unnoticed in derivatives data.

Derivative Metrics Reveal Bearish Sentiment Spike

According to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, the Binance net taker volume, a metric that measures the difference between aggressive longs and shorts, fell dramatically from $20 million to -$135 million in under eight hours.

This signals a sharp pivot in sentiment, as traders rushed to hedge or speculate on downside risk in response to the unfolding news.

Darkfost emphasized that this was the largest intraday net taker volume reversal observed on Binance this year. The abrupt shift reflects how quickly sentiment can change when macro-level narratives or influential figures dominate headlines.

In this case, the market responded swiftly to perceived uncertainty, leading to a concentration of short positions and significant selling pressure.

The situation also led to a notable change in BTC perpetual futures funding rates. Funding on Binance turned negative after briefly trending toward positive territory, dropping from +0.003 to below -0.004.

This indicates that short sellers were willing to pay a premium to maintain bearish positions, underscoring rising fear and potentially overextended downside bets.