Analyst: The current market is seeing a resurgence of sellers in the futures market, with insufficient buying pressure in spot markets to effectively support the price

BlockBeats News, January 20th, CryptoQuant analyst Axel posted that after weeks of buyer dominance, sellers have regained control of the derivatives market, with the U.S. spot market failing to provide hedging demand — both signals point to the market entering a risk-off mode.

The Exchange Whale Ratio indicator shows a sharp shift in trading activity from buyers to sellers, with an Exchange Whale Ratio of -0.0917 and an Exchange Whale Index (90-day) of -1.81, indicating a market structure dominated by persistent selling pressure. This is a significant deterioration from the nearly neutral signals seen in the past few days and is accompanied by an expansion of the short position skew: the short ratio is 0.546, and the long ratio is 0.454.

This structure typically implies that sellers are not only “holding positions” but are also actively market selling, amplifying the downward pressure. As long as the Z-score remains in the negative territory, any rebound will be fragile, more likely to be a brief relief rather than a trend reversal. The first sign of market improvement will be a return to the neutral range accompanied by a continuous narrowing of the negative imbalance.

Additionally, the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Index remains negative (around -0.077), indicating a lack of willingness in the U.S. market to buy this asset above the global market price. In this scenario, the derivative market's volatile spikes may trigger sharp price fluctuations and short-term rebounds, but without spot support, these fluctuations are unlikely to translate into sustained recovery. This is not a “panic sell-off” but a lack of buyer pressure — the very demand that is typically used to confirm market quality. Improvement signals will only appear when the premium exits the negative territory and begins to consistently reflect the return of U.S. spot demand.