Bullish Bitcoin traders appear to have scaled back their bets on the world’s largest cryptocurrency as its two major tailwinds subside. The Bitcoin funding rate — the premium paid by traders to open new long positions in the token’s perpetual futures market — on April 19 turned negative for the first time since October 2023, CryptoQuant data shows. The metric underscores a moderation in demand for Bitcoin after a period in which a batch of US spot-Bitcoin ETFs drove the token to record highs. Net inflows to those ETFs have waned in recent weeks, while the hotly-anticipated halving, a quadrennial event that slashes ... (full story)