The cryptocurrency market continued to establish new support levels on Thursday, with bitcoin trading around $103,000 while ether rose less than 1% to $3,500.
The average cryptocurrency Relative Strength Index (RSI) remains in neutral territory, while the Fear and Greed Index is printing 25/100, indicating negative sentiment across the market.
There was a little more action in the altcoin market. AERO fell 18% in the last 24 hours following the announcement of a merger with Velodrome, while STRK and FET also made double-digit downward moves.
XRP led gains among the largest cryptocurrencies, rising 3.5% following a flurry of activity in the options market.
The market needs a catalyst before confirming a possible downtrend from October’s all-time high, or a possible bottom around $98,000. The dollar remains relatively strong around 99.8; a break above 100 would put pressure on risk assets like the crypto sector.
Derivatives positioning
By Omkar Godbole
- Despite the news of the US government reopening, Volmex’s BTC and ETH 30-day implied volatility indices remain within their recent elevated ranges, highlighting persistent structural issues that continue to keep volatility expectations high.
- Futures markets continued to de-risk. Bitcoin open interest (OI) fell 3.58% to $66.14 billion, with liquidations totaling $186.47 million. Most of them were long traders betting on a price rally.
- OI on SOL, HYPE and DOGE also declined, while ZEC futures saw capital inflows, lifting OI by 4%.
- On the CME, the three-month annualized premium in ether futures fell below 6%, representing a discount to the BTC premium for the first time in weeks. This does not necessarily imply a relative bearishness in ether, but rather could reflect increased cash and carry arbitrage in the second-largest cryptocurrency.
- On Deribit, chokes accounted for 27% of the total BTC block options flow in the last 24 hours. This is a sign of a growing bias towards non-directional strategies that bet on the degree of price volatility. This has been the case for the past week.
- In the case of ETH, the diagonal put schedule and the call schedule are two of the most popular strategies.
- Generally speaking, BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias towards puts, which offer downside protection, in the short term.
symbolic talk
By Oliver Knight
- The altcoin market continued to consolidate on Thursday following what has become a prolonged period of low-volatility price action.
- CoinGlass data shows that open interest across all crypto markets fell 1.13% to $142 billion, while 24-hour volume rose 25% to $328 billion, demonstrating a preference for spot trading over derivatives.
- Ether are traded with little change, while tokens that include solana lodging and lodging and all were in the red between 0.2% and 1.8%.
- AERO, the token linked to Base’s leading decentralized exchange (DEX) Aerodrome, lost 18.2% after recovering on Wednesday.
- The relative volatility may be linked to an announcement that the company is upgrading its protocol infrastructure to support EVM-compatible extensions, integrating with Circle Internet’s Arc blockchain and broader “MetaDEX” hubs, expanding the reach and capacity of its ecosystem.
- Aerodrome also said it will merge with Velodrome, becoming a protocol with a unified token. AERO holders will get 94.5% of the new token and VELO holders 5.5%.
- and the FET token also recorded sharp drops (13.8% and 11%, respectively), although both remain considerably higher throughout the week.
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