Bitcoin once again failed to break out of its month-long trading range over the weekend, selling below the key resistance level of $74,000 recently at $70,600.
Ether (ETH) and the altcoin market followed suit as ETH tumbled from April 11 at $2,320 to $2,190. It’s still little changed since midnight UTC.
The selling came as Brent crude jumped back above $100 a barrel after US President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran has been a direct driver of risk-on price movements over the past month, with US stocks and crypto inversely correlated to oil and the US dollar.
So far, bitcoin and the broader crypto market remain in a trading range that has persisted since early February, failing to break above $75,000 to the upside while holding firm above $63,000 to the downside.
Derivatives positioning
- Futures tied to most major tokens, including bitcoin and ether, have fallen slightly over the past 24 hours. The move indicates traders are reducing risk after President Trump ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a surge in oil prices.
- While oil prices are up 5%, open interest (OI) in Binance crude futures fell more than 1%. Activity on decentralized platform Hyperliquid picked up over the weekend, with combined OI in Brent and WTI futures topping $1bn.
- Futures linked to saw strong capital inflows, with open interest jumping to the most since February 26. This is not necessarily bullish, as both the perpetual funding rates and the 24-hour cumulative volume delta remain negative, suggesting that inflows are largely driven by traders chasing downside positioning or actively building short exposures rather than accumulating long positions.
- Apart from HYPE, LINK, AVAX, TRX and ZEC, all top 25 coins have seen negative CVD, indicating that sell-side aggression is outweighing buy-side aggression across the market.
- A negative CVD indicates that more participants are selling by actively hitting bids than buying by raising asks.
- Bitcoin and ether’s option-based implied volatility metrics remain low across most timeframes, suggesting the market is pricing in calmer, slower price movements. The volatility curve is also quite flat and shows no strong expectation of sudden future spikes.
- Still, concerns about downside persist. BTC puts are currently trading at a premium of 5 points or more across all timeframes, indicating stronger demand for downside protection. ETH puts are also elevated, though to a noticeably lesser degree than BTC.
- Block flows included call calendar spreads and straddles, with these two strategies accounting for over 50% of total activity over the past 24 hours, indicating investors’ preference for time decay and volatility over a clear directional bias.
Token talk
- The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) and DeFi Select Index (DFX) were both in the black on Monday, along with the altcoin-dominant CoinDesk 100 (CD100), while bitcoin and indices dominated by the major tokens lost ground after oil prices surged above $100 a barrel. barrel.
- DeFi token AAVE was one of the best performers with an increase of around 5%, followed by HYPE and JUP which added around 2%.
- But it was memecoins that dominated Monday’s gains: BROCCOLI, BAN and 司安人生 posted gains of over 10%, demonstrating investor appetite for highly speculative tokens in what is otherwise a very flat market.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 36/100, higher than February’s sub-20 low but below the 50/100 it hit last month.
