The recent 14% monthly surge in bitcoin's price to $76,190.58, its best performance in a year, is expected to push the price past $80,000 soon. However, the perpetual futures market is showing a different trend, with a negative funding rate, which typically indicates a lack of confidence in the price increase. 10x Research's Founder, Markus Thielen, attributes this divergence to institutional hedging activity rather than a bearish play.
The negative funding rate, currently at -5% compared to the historical norm of +8%, reflects a structural change in the market driven by the increasing participation of sophisticated players. Thielen identifies three sources of short pressure in the futures market: hedge fund redemptions, institutional trades involving shorting bitcoin futures as a hedge, and bitcoin miners pivoting to artificial intelligence. These mechanical risk-management trades are not bearish bets, but rather a sign of the growing institutional presence in the market.