coindesk.com
The crypto market continued to establish fresh levels of support on Thursday, with bitcoin $BTC$102 992,45 trading around $103,000 while ether $ETH$3 506,45 rose less than 1% to $3,500.
The average crypto relative strength index (RSI) remains in neutral territory while the Fear and Greed index is printing 25/100, indicating negative sentiment across the market.
There was slightly more action in the altcoin market. $AERO slid 18% in the past 24 hours following an announcement of a merger with Velodrome, while $STRK and $FET also made double-digit moves to the downside.
XRP led gains among the biggest cryptocurrencies, rising by 3.5% following a flurry of activity on the options market.
The market is in need of a catalyst before confirming a potential downtrend from October's record high, or a potential bottoming around $98,000. The dollar remains relatively strong at around 99.8; a break above 100 would put pressure on risk assets like the crypto sector.
Derivatives positioning
By Omkar Godbole
- Despite the news of the U.S. government reopening, $BTC and $ETH 30-day implied volatility indexes from Volmex remain within their recent elevated ranges, highlighting persistent structural issues that continue to keep volatility expectations high.
- Futures markets continued to remove risk. Bitcoin open interest (OI) dropped 3.58% to $66.14 billion, with liquidations totaling $186.47 million. Most of these were long traders betting on a price rally.
- OI in $SOL, HYPE and DOGE also declined, while ZEC futures saw capital inflows, lifting OI by 4%.
- On the CME, the annualized three-month premium in ether futures slipped under 6%, representing a discount to $BTC premium for the first time in weeks. This does not necessarily imply relative bearishness in ether, it could be reflect an increased cash and carry arbitrage in the second-largest cryptocurrency.
- On Deribit, strangles accounted for 27% of the total $BTC block options flow in the past 24 hours. That's a sign of growing bias for non-directional strategies betting on the degree of price volatility. This has been the case over the past week.
- In $ETH's case, put diagonal calendar and call calendar spreads are two of the most popular strategies.
- Broadly speaking, $BTC and $ETH options continue to show a bias for puts, which offer downside protection, over the near term.
Token talk
By Oliver Knight
- The altcoin market continued to consolidate on Thursday following what has become an extended period of low-volatility price action.
- CoinGlass data shows that open interest across all crypto markets dropped 1.13% to $142 billion, while 24 hour volume increased by 25% to $328 billion, demonstrating a preference for spot trading over derivatives.
- Ether $ETH$3 506,45 traded little changed, while tokens including solana $SOL$156,55, bnb BNB$967,27 and TRX$0.2985 all found themselves in the red by between 0.2% and 1.8%.
- $AERO, the token tied to Base's leading decentralized exchange (DEX), Aerodrome, lost 18.2% after rallying on Wednesday.
- The relative volatility can be tied to an announcement that the company is upgrading its protocol infrastructure to support EVM-compatible extensions, integrating with Circle Internet’s Arc blockchain and broader “MetaDEX” hubs, expanding its ecosystem reach and capability.
- Aerodrome also said it will merge with Velodrome, becoming one protocol with a unified token. $AERO holders will get 94.5% of the new token and VELO holders 5.5%.
- $STRK$0.1373 and the $FET token also posted sharp declines — 13.8% and 11%, respectively — though both remain up considerably over the course of the week.
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