On April 16, CoinDesk analyst James Van Straten said that the Bitcoin funding rate has fallen to its lowest level since 2023, and that historical patterns show that signals like this often coincide with market bottoms. According to Glassnode data, the seven-day moving average of the funding rate has dropped to about -0.005%. The funding rate is the fee periodically paid between long and short sides in perpetual contracts, used to keep the contract price aligned with the spot market. When the fee is positive, longs pay shorts, reflecting bullish market sentiment; when the fee is negative, shorts pay longs, indicating the market is leaning toward bearishness.

Even though the funding rate has remained negative throughout March and April this year, Bitcoin has still moved up from trading in the $60,000 to $65,000 range to around $75,000. Historically, deeply negative funding rates often appear in sync with Bitcoin’s cyclical bottoms: during the March 2020 market crash triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Bitcoin fell to about $3,000; during China’s mining ban announcement in 2021, it dropped to $30,000; during the FTX collapse in November 2022, it bottomed at around $15,000; and during the Silicon Valley Bank crisis in 2023, it briefly fell below $20,000. During August 2024’s Japanese yen arbitrage unwind and the sell-off on “Liberation Day” in April 2025, negative funding rates also appeared in step with cyclical lows.

Persistent negative funding rates indicate that even if price action is bullish, short positions remain at relatively high levels. This divergence may mean that the market is climbing the “Wall of Worry,” and that large short positions could become fuel for further upside in price. #GatePreIPOs首发SpaceX