Bitfinex Report: Bitcoin Price Currently Driven by Spot Demand, Laying Groundwork for High Certainty Mean Reversion Rally

March 10 — Bitfinex said in a report that Bitcoin’s $60k–$64k support range held up unexpectedly despite two weeks of geopolitical escalation after Iran’s “Black Saturday” and a disappointing U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report showing just 92,000 new jobs added. Since then, global oil prices have surged sharply — a move that could impact future Consumer Price Index (CPI) readings, as energy accounts for ~9% of the final CPI calculation. These inflationary pressures suggest all risk assets may face headwinds. For Bitcoin, however, two key forces are at play: 1. Bitcoin’s volatility is more frequent and sharp than other risk assets. As its correlation with high-risk tech sectors rises and its link to safe-havens like gold falls, Bitcoin often sells off sharply earlier than other risk assets — but also bottoms out sooner. This dynamic may be unfolding now, given Bitcoin’s underperformance vs. the S&P 500 or Nasdaq over the past two quarters. 2. The market is in a “deleveraging wave”: Retail investor sentiment remains highly cautious, with Bitcoin posting a 52% peak-to-trough drawdown since its October 2025 high — nearly wiping out most of the market’s speculative froth. That’s confirmed by the Leverage Reset Index (ratio of total open interest [OI] to exchange spot reserves), which has dropped to a multi-year low of 0.32. This means price discovery is now driven primarily by spot demand, not leveraged derivatives — laying the groundwork for a high-certainty mean-reversion trend once macro volatility contracts.