coindesk.com
Bitcoin BTC$90,350.12 remained relatively stable over the past 24 hours, trading within a narrow price range and reverting back toward Thursday's lows.
The largest cryptocurrency is currently a tick above $90,000, firmly in the range it has been stuck in since late November as trading volume dries up.
Daily volume fell 9% in the past 24 hours to $38 billion, a far cry from a few months ago, when it regularly ranged between $80 billion and $130 billion.
The lack of trading activity coupled with low liquidity has led to choppy price action across bitcoin and altcoins, with several spikes over the past few months that rapidly get reversed, punishing traders that trade with leverage.
The altcoin market is giving mixed signals on Friday; polygon (POLY) rose by 7.8% since midnight UTC after announcing it was pivoting to become a neobank. Maple finance (SYRUP) and zcash ZEC$436.47 also posted gains, while tokens including SKY and TON moved to the downside.
Derivatives positioning
- Over $200 million in crypto futures bets have been liquidated over 24 hours. That's significantly lower from the $400 million or more observed in each of he past three days. It seems the lack of price action has traders waiting on the sidelines.
- Volmex's BVIV, which represents bitcoin's annualized 30-day implied volatility, cooled to 43% from 47.3%, reversing the end-December spike. It shows traders aren't sweating over the prospects of heightened volatility due to the today's U.S. jobs report, a Supreme Court tariff ruling and other data releases.
- Ether's volatility index, EVIV, has dropped to 60%, its lowest since Oct. 11.
- Total notional open interest (OI) in crypto futures declined to $138.5 billion from over $141 billion early this week.
- OI in most major tokens, including BTC, dropped over 24 hours. ZEC stands out with a 14% increase, which likely stems from traders hedging downside risks amid price volatility.
- Perpetual funding rates for major tokens stay positive, indicating a demand for bullish exposure. XLM, WLFI and CRO continue to see negative rates, with TRX joining the fray.
- On Deribit, straddles and strangles account for nearly 30% of the total BTC option block flows over the past 24 hours. These strategies are used to bet on volatility trends rather than price direction.
- In ETH's case, strangles and call spreads have been the most preferred plays.
Token talk
- Polygon's POL token was the best performer over the past 24 hours, rising after an announcing a neobank pivot. The token rose to its highest level since Nov. 20.
- While the move is an impressive show of strength, its 2% market depth — a metric used to assess liquidity 2% above and below current price — remains low at just $197,000 to the upside.
- This means that a purchase of $200,000 worth of the token would move the price by more than 2%.
- Several altcoins underperformed the wider market on Friday, with sky (SKY) losing 1.7% since midnight UTC and TON falling 4.3%.
- Privacy coins monero XMR$456.60 and zcash ZEC$436.47 reversed their Thursday moves with the former moving slightly lower while ZEC recovered by more than 14% from its lows as the development team shakeup appears to be less impactful than first thought.