Bitcoin rose 2.8% since midnight UTC after global markets fell as futures trading opened an hour earlier.
Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 index futures were both down more than 1.5% since midnight, as oil rose to as high as $115 a barrel. barrel, the largest since June 2022. Precious metals also suffered. Gold and silver lost 1.6% and 1.1% respectively, eroding the haven story as investors flocked to the US dollar.
Sentiment for bitcoin, meanwhile, is heating up and has been resilient to the war in Iran and subsequent supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz.
“While BTC has yet to fully earn its digital gold narrative, its practical use case as a digital escape hatch is becoming increasingly relevant, especially in the Gulf countries, amid episodes of currency volatility and political uncertainty,” trading firm QCP said in a note on Monday.
Derivatives positioning
- Exchanges have liquidated nearly $400 million worth of crypto futures bets in 24 hours. Bearish bets on oil bore the brunt as prices for the so-called black gold rose to $115 a barrel.
- Open interest (OI) in bitcoin futures remains steady near weekly lows of around 650K BTC, a sign that the futures market is not participating in the Monday morning rally. OI in ether futures increased to 13 million ether.
- XRP’s OI jumped to 1.72 billion tokens, the highest since February 24, along with a small increase in SOL OI, both of which indicate capital inflows.
- OI in PAXG, AVAX, LTC and several other alternative tokens have fallen over 24 hours. Investors appear to be reducing the risk on the price increase.
- BTC and ETH’s 30-day implied volatility indices remain stable, reflecting market calm amid chaos in Asian equity and oil markets.
- On Deribit, bitcoin and ether puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, signaling continued downside concerns. However, the premium remains largely unchanged from last week, suggesting that the rise in oil prices has not triggered much demand for protective puts.
- BTC’s implied volatility structure remains in reverse, a sign that traders are pricing in higher volatility in the short term over the long term. It is consistent with the unknowns of war.
Token talk
- The altcoin market was booming overnight with tokens including DASH, XMR and ZEC showing gains of between 3.8% and 5.2%.
- Decentralized financial tokens (DeFi) also performed well. ETHFI and MORPHO have both outperformed bitcoin and ether (ETH) since midnight.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is now at 36/100, significantly higher than February’s low of 22/100. A CoinDesk report on Friday suggested that the lack of altcoin mentions on social media could be bullish in the form of a market reversal.
- The best performing benchmark in the last 24 hours was CoinDesk’s Computing Select Index (CPUS), which includes chainlink and bittensor (TAO) and is up 2.7%, followed by the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Index (SCPXC), which is up 0.92% since Sunday morning.
- On the other hand, institution-focused token canton (CC) has lost 3.4% of its value in the last 24 hours, while the token created by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, fell by about 2%.
