Decred (DCR), a token built for autonomy and decentralized governance, extended gains even as the broader market led by bitcoin fought.
The token has risen 16% in the past 24 hours and is now trading at $34.58, the highest since November, CoinDesk data shows. It is the best-performing top-100 token over the past four weeks, having gained more than 80% following a change in Treasury rules on February 8.
Bitcoin, for its part, is facing renewed selling pressure and is only trading around $67,000, a weak follow-up after jumping to $70,000 on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency is down 2% on a 24-hour basis, with ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL) and the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) recording similar losses.
Market participants remain cautious and continue to seek put options or downside protection in bitcoin. Deribit said ETF holders and corporate government bonds are buying put options at the $60,000 strike that expires in six to 12 months.
Analysts said institutional flows are improving but not yet decisive, and traders should avoid taking big risks.
“Long-term investors may consider staggered accumulation (SIP allocation) near support zones rather than deploying lump sums at resistance,” Vikram Subburaj, CEO of crypto exchange Giottus.com, said in an email to CoinDesk.
Derivatives positioning
- Cumulative crypto futures open interest (OI) has fallen back to a multi-month low of around $93.5 billion. The drop shows how quickly the optimism sparked by Wednesday’s bitcoin price rally has dissipated.
- Major tokens including bitcoin and ether have seen capital outflows from futures as notional OI fell more than their spot prices.
- The market-wide long-short ratio continues to show a dominance of shorts or bearish bets.
- OI in Tether Gold (XAUT) fell another 11%, extending the decline from the beginning of this week. Gold-linked assets seem to have fallen out of favor recently.
- Most large-cap tokens, including BTC and ETH, are once again experiencing negative perpetual funding rates. This means that bearish plays dominate the market again.
- Participation in CME bitcoin futures is declining, as shown by open interest hitting the lowest levels this year.
- On Deribit, one-month bitcoin still trades at a 7% premium to calls, in a sign of lingering concerns about further spot price declines. The same applies to ether.
- Bitcoin put spreads, a bearish strategy, accounted for 75% of the total block flow over 24 hours. In ETH’s case, traders were chasing put spreads and straddles (volatility strategies).
Token Talk
The DFINITY Foundation proposed burning 20% of revenue from cloud engines by introducing a deflationary element tied directly to Internet Computer (ICP) network usage.
The remaining 80% of revenue will be directed to node operators, replacing fixed emissions with performance-based incentives. The idea is to make ICP’s token supply more responsive to real demand.
ICP’s price rose about 6% in the last 24-hour period, from about $2.41 to $2.56. That’s down from a high of $2.7 seen in the period. The price appears to be influenced not only by the fund’s proposal, but also by Nvidia’s blowout earnings.
Those earnings boosted sentiment around AI-related assets, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying AI is only getting better.
Often marketed as a decentralized alternative to traditional cloud AI infrastructure, ICP was among several AI-linked tokens, including render (RENDER) and bittensor (TAO), to benefit from renewed investor interest in the sector.
