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Instead of an elevator, Bitcoin seems to be taking the staircase to the almost $65k all-time high as Crypto Twitter (CT) gets increasingly convinced that we are in the second inning of the bull market. BTC is currently trading above $46,500, up from $29,350 low on July 20, recording 56.6% year-to-date gains. The next levels for the leading cryptocurrency to reach are $48k and $50k. To start the week, the market found strength on Asia open, but the European and North American sessions saw sellers push most things lower, noted Delphi Digital. Ether is also enjoying the support above $3,000 as it hovers around $3,250, up 333% YTD. ETHBTC has also been trading near 0.07 since earlier this month. As we reported, the buzzing, however, has been around coins like SOL, YGG, and LUNA that are hitting fresh all-time highs while DeFi and meme coins are also enjoying a bounce. SOL actually hit another ATH a couple of hours back at $74, currently in a euphoric mode and sitting at the 10th spot with a $20.8 billion market cap, a step under Polkadot (DOT), a $27 billion project trading at $26.55. Projects from the Solana ecosystem like Audius (AUDIO) and Arweave (AR) are also enjoying gains. Ethereum, Terra, and Solana are also leading the way in the DeFi as the total value locked (TVL) in the sector reaches $148 billion, rapidly approaching new ATHs. While not a perfect measurement of adoption, TVL does show “how much value people are entrusting to smart contracts,” said Ryan Watkins of Messari, noting Ethereum TVL has climbed to $116 billion, with Aave (AAVE) and Curve (CRV) being at the forefront. Compared to Terra’s $5 billion, Solana printed a new ATH at $2 bln. Other popular chains include Polygon (MATIC) at $6 billion, which has drawn the attention away from BSC, which now only has $20 bln in TVL.
Degens Aren’t Here Yet!
As we have been reporting, the latest strength in the market has not been on the back of leverage which was very heightened in April and May, painting a bullish picture. Currently, the market is gradually moving towards its peak without the leveraged long traders, just like when the market broke 2017 ATHs at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. As of writing, the highest funding rate on Bitcoin perpetual contracts is 0.02% on FTX, while on some exchanges like OKEx and BitMEX, it is still in the negative, according to Bybt. Traders are not in a rush to get long BTC, meaning frothy conditions are way off. As for the open interest, it is currently at $16.53 bln on Bitcoin futures and $8.72 billion on Ether futures. With price “moving at a faster pace than open interest, implying some degree of doubt from futures/perp traders that this rally is real. Or in crypto terms — a lack of FOMO,” said Delphi Digital. While ETH’s structure looks fairly similar to Bitcoin, the difference between price and open interest growth is a little wider. This lower leverage implies a healthier market with less fuel for liquidations and stop hunts. In the options market, premiums increased as people bought calls to speculate on the upside, but implied volatility also increased significantly that could signal the market’s expectation of near-term pullback, it added.