I have been looking at the funding rate data and things are pretty clear: the market is in total pessimism mode. Bitcoin has been bouncing around $77,500 lately, but the interesting part is that the funding rates on exchanges have turned negative. That means shorters are paying longers just to hold their positions, which is a pretty strong sign that selling pressure dominates.

What catches my attention the most is that Ethereum has even more pronounced negative rates than Bitcoin. The crypto funding drops in ETH are much more aggressive, suggesting that traders are quite skeptical about Ethereum in particular. Basically, when you see these negative rates, the market is telling you that there are more people wanting to sell than buy, and they’re willing to pay for it.

This is the reason these mechanisms exist: to keep the perpetual contract price aligned with the actual asset price. When sentiment is so bearish, the rates invert and start acting as a buffer. Definitely something to monitor in the coming days.