Bitcoin muted, but holds above $64,000

Bitcoin on Sunday was muted, but holding above $64,000 after rebounding from below $58,000 earlier in July

Bitcoin on Sunday was muted, down slightly but holding above $64,000 after rebounding from below $58,000 earlier in July, while large options positions pointed to a potential move toward $72,000, CoinDesk reported.

Bitcoin was last down 0.4% to $64,497.5 by 21:20 GMT. Traders purchased 20,000 Bitcoin call options with a $70,000 strike expiring July 31 while selling an equal number of $72,000 calls. The bull call spreads represented around $2.5 billion in notional value.

That strategy benefits from a moderate increase above $70,000 but limits gains once Bitcoin reaches $72,000. The size and structure of the trades suggest institutional rather than retail positioning.

The expiration comes two days after the U.S. central bank’s July 29 decision. Futures markets assign a 75% to 80% probability that officials will leave rates at 3.5% to 3.75%, after June inflation data showed easing price pressures.

Beyond price action, Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor warned that Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 could threaten the network’s neutrality, according to RootData.

BIP 110 proposes a one-year soft fork restricting data-heavy transactions. It would limit outputs to 83 bytes and cap certain payloads at 256 bytes while exempting outputs created before activation.

Supporters argue the restrictions would reduce arbitrary data storage and ease burdens on node operators. Saylor said Bitcoin’s consensus rules should not determine which otherwise valid transactions deserve access to block space.

Miner support remains near zero, far below the proposal’s activation threshold of 1,109 out of 2,016 mined blocks. Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back have warned that enforcing disputed rules without broad backing could divide the network.

Mining concentration presents a related governance concern. Four pools controlled more than 70% of Bitcoin’s hashrate in a June 23 snapshot cited by CryptoSlate.

Foundry Digital accounted for 31%, followed by AntPool at 18%, ViaBTC at 13%, and F2Pool at 10%. A separate seven-day snapshot published July 16 placed Foundry at 27%, with F2Pool and AntPool each holding 17.2%.