Bitcoin steadies near $78,000 as gold rallies, altcoins consolidate after best week in 3 years

Bitcoin $BTC$77,694.98 is trading around $77,800 on Monday morning, little changed since midnight UTC as markets digest one of the sharpest weekly rallies in over three years.

The pause follows a week in which $BTC surged roughly 24% from below $63,000 in its best performance since March 2023, after the U.S. Treasury's decision to double buybacks of long-dated bonds cracked a six-week trading range and triggered more than $3 billion in short liquidations in 24 hours.

Equities lagged as crypto and gold rallied in tandem last week, with the precious metal adding around 0.8% Monday morning and sitting near record highs as Treasury Secretary Bessent's debt management strategy continued to weigh on long-dated yields. The 30-year bond yield briefly touched a 19-year high before the buyback announcement pulled it back.

Altcoins are broadly level to slightly lower since midnight, a consolidation rather than a reversal. Bitcoin dominance holds near 59.2% and the Altcoin Season index sits at 42/100, up slightly from 33 on Friday but still firmly in Bitcoin territory. Last week's altcoin outperformance was selective, not a broad rotation.

Derivatives positioning

• $BTC open interest slides as the spot price rallies: Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) declined to a two-month low of 715K $BTC from the Aug. 18 high of 762K $BTC, according to data source Coinglass. The decline shows that last week’s surge was driven by spot buying and unwinding of shorts rather than leverage traders taking outright bullish bets.
• Other majors reveal a similar divergence: $ETH, SOL and $XRP futures revealed a similar pattern of OI declines amid the price rally.
• $ZEC’s OI surges with its price: Privacy-focused zcash ($ZEC) experienced the opposite, with OI climbing to 2.24 million tokens from 1.81 million tokens a week ago. $ZEC’s price rose over 70% in this time frame. A rise in OI alongside a rise in price is said to confirm the uptrend.
• Aggressive buying in $ZEC: $ZEC bulls were the most aggressive among other major cryptocurrencies. The OI-adjusted weekly cumulative volume delta (CVD) is most positive among majors, a sign that buyers have been leading the price action by trading at market orders rather than passive limit orders.
• No signs of overheating: The market looks far from overheated, with annualized funding rates for $BTC, $ETH and other majors, hovering around 10%. It shows a bias for bullish bets, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• Implied volatility explodes higher: $BTC’s 30-day implied volatility, as measured by the BVIV index, has climbed to an annualized 47% from 36% a week ago, an unusual rise alongside the price rally. The measure is widely seen as a “fear index” that typically jumps during price selloffs. Ether’s EVIV index has surged, too.
• Cautious optimism: In Deribit-listed options market, the call-put skew flipped positive at the front-end. It shows that calls or bullish bets expiring in the short term are now pricier than puts. The 24-hour volume profile, however, paints a mixed picture with the $70,000 put topping the most active list followed by some call options. All this points to cautious optimism.

Token Talk

• Hyperliquid ($HYPE)slipped 3.3% since midnight to around $79.59, pulling back after setting a record high of $83.30 late Sunday. $HYPE was among the standout performers last week, fueled in part by Trump's comments on CFTC oversight, and is up roughly 28% over the past seven days.
• Aave AAVE$136.96 eased 0.6% since midnight to around $140.68, but remains one of the week's bigger winners having risen by more than 62% in the period. Volume remained elevated as DeFi tokens caught a bid in the broader risk-on move.
• $XRP is down 2.8% since midnight at $1.48, giving back some of Friday's gains. The token rose 47% the past week as it outperformed most large caps.
• Morpho MORPHO$2.7808 is one of this week’s laggards, falling 6.2% since midnight to around $2.73, though it still carries an 18% 24 hour gain and 33% on the week, suggesting today's move is profit-taking after a sharp run.
• Ethena (ENA) was last week’s standout, doubling in value to $1.79 on the back of a multi-month downswing that saw it tumble more than 90%.