DeFi Autumn after Solana Summer? Traders Still Short as Bitcoin Jumps to $48k and Ether to Nearly $3,700

For the third consecutive day, the cryptocurrency market is bouncing in every session; Asia, Europe, and North America. The latest bout of strength has Bitcoin (BTC) going above $48,500, and currently, we are hovering around $48k. Ether (ETH) went up to about $3,680 and is currently trading around $3,600. The total crypto market cap is also slowly making its way to $2.3 trillion, which is improving the market sentiment. Just last week, the sentiments were of fear, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index showing a reading of 45, which improved to neutral at 49 on Wednesday. Today, while the market is still neutral, the reading has further increased to 53, starting to tilt to the greed side. Interestingly, while the crypto asset prices have begun to pump, the funding rate is still very low and, in some instances, even negative. The highest Bitcoin funding rate is currently at 0.0306% on OKEx, while negative 0.0302% on Bybit and negative 0.0053% on BitMEX, according to Bybt. “Derivatives venue with probably the highest concentration of retail participants and high leverage positions deviating from rest of market with a short bias,” noted trader Light. “Constructive environment for bulls,” he added. Open interest also continues to recover from last week's drop. OI on Bitcoin futures is now at $16.11 bln after falling to $14.81 bln on Sept 13, but we are still far from the peak of $27.68 bln from mid-April. As for Ether futures, OI is at $8.75 bln, up from the drop to $7.84 bln during the recent price tumble. OI on Ether futures actually hit a new all-time high on Sept. 6, at $11.62 bln, when Ether’s price ran past $4k briefly. On CME, OI for Ether future is back to running to $780.6 mln, up from $650.22 mln two days back, nearing the $860.75 peak from less than 10 days back. As for BTC, OI is at $3.81 bln, recovering from a drop to $3.29 bln. CME’s BTC OI ATH was on April 13 at $5.27 bln. Besides top crypto assets, decentralized finance (DeFi) seems to be back in the limelight, finally. Could it be DeFi autumn after Solana summer? It’s to be seen, but DeFi coins are surely leading the bounce this time, with REN, SUSHI, DYDX, UMA, RUNE, CRV, and SNX up 10% to 20% in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) is down 25% at $159.64 from its ATH a week back after rallying 517% in August and early September. The market cap of the DeFi sector has recorded an uptick to $136.4 bln, while the total value locked (TVL) in the sector is now at $180 bln. After a rough past six months, DeFi seems prepared to provide relief to its holders though DEXs lag behind the rest of the sector.