Bitcoin cooled off in Asian hours on Thursday, trading at $68,600 after testing $70,000 during a torrid US session on Wednesday.
As February draws to a close, the major cryptocurrency remains in a trading range that has persisted since the beginning of the month, after testing $62,500 on Tuesday and $71,100 to the upside on February 15.
It’s worth noting that bitcoin broke a similar trading range to the upside in January, catching breakout traders before the price tumbled from $98,000 to $60,000 over the subsequent three weeks, forming a lower high in this latest bearish cycle.
A few tokens outshone the broader altcoin market. HYPE is up 4.3% since midnight UTC as it moves back towards $30, while privacy token decred (DCR) rose to its highest since November after adding 4%.
U.S. stock index futures are little changed and NVIDIA’s earnings report fails to generate sustained upside amid lingering concerns that the AI ​​valuation is overstated.
Derivatives positioning
- Total open interest in the crypto futures (OI) market has increased by over 6.6% to nearly $100 billion. This is greater than the increase in the total crypto market value, indicating that there has been an influx of fresh capital into the market.
- ADA and ETH futures stand out with OI increases of 21% and 15% respectively. Several other altcoins have seen gains of 9%.
- Bitcoin’s OI growth of over 3% seems largely due to the spot price gain.
- BTC and ETH’s 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, remain near weekly lows, indicating calm in the market and supporting continued price gains.
- Annualized perpetual funding rates for most tokens, including bitcoin and ether, have stabilized at just above zero, indicating a renewed bias for bullish, long bets.
- On Deribit, bitcoin’s price rise sparked demand for call options at strikes from $85,000 to $90,000. However, the overall options market continues to show a bias for puts, a sign that downside reservations remain.
- The $60,000 put option remains the most popular bet, with a theoretical open interest of over $1.4 billion.
Token talk
- Layer-1 token with a 21% increase over the past 24 hours. While the move held out during European hours, investors are showing appetite ahead of the network’s reward halving coming in March.
- Uniswap’s governance token (UNI) also rose, adding 15%. The move can be attributed to a new governance vote that proposes to increase the protocol’s revenue capture across multiple layer-2 networks.
- One sign that particularly underperformed was which lost more than 6% as the sell-off continued into the European hours. There is no clear bearish catalyst for the move, reflecting continued altcoin vulnerability due to lack of liquidity.
- Crypto majors and ether (ETH) is up about 8.5% since Wednesday morning. The moves were intriguing because open interest in both assets rose, suggesting they were supported by leverage as opposed to spot buying, according to Coinalyze.
