The cryptocurrency market remained bullish on Thursday as bitcoin traded near its weekly high around $93,500 and ether rose to $3200 after completing its Fusaka upgrade.
The Fear and Greed Index advanced to 27/100, moving out of the “extreme fear” zone as a degree of optimism begins to enter the market.
It is worth noting that bitcoin and most other tokens remain in downtrends since early October, forming a series of lower highs and lower lows. To break the trend, Bitcoin needs to start making highs above $98,500, which would show signs of a significant bullish reversal.
The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) added 1.13% in the last 24 hours as the market began to take advantage of Tuesday’s rally.
Derivatives positioning
- Bitcoin’s options-based 30-day implied volatility index BVIV declined to 48.44%, the lowest since Nov. 14, reversing the rise to 65% on Nov. 21, when spot prices fell to nearly $80,000 on some exchanges.
- The drop invalidates September’s uptrend line, pointing to a low volatility environment ahead, supporting the bullish trend in the spot price.
- Ether volatility index fell to 72%, the lowest since November 3.
- On Deribit, BTC puts continue to earn premiums to calls across all time frames, while ether options show slight optimism after the August 2026 expiry. It’s a sign of persistent demand for protective puts and call overwriting strategies.
- The $100,000 call option has once again become the most popular option, with open interest of $2.82 billion.
- Strangles dominated block flows in both bitcoin and ether.
- In the futures market, ZEC has seen open interest (OI) growth of over 6% in 24 hours and ETH OI has increased by 4%. There are signs of speculative activity in FART futures, where OI has increased by 22%.
symbolic talk
- The altcoin market remains depressed despite the overall market strength.
- CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator dropped to 20/100 after being five points higher at the beginning of the month.
- The move highlights how investors are showing signs of preference towards bitcoin rather than altcoins that typically carry more risk.
- There were some exceptions to that rule in the last 24 hours, with TAO, ENA and AVAX posting gains of between 4.5% and 8.5%.
- On the other hand, hedera (HBAR) plunged 3.8% as momentum from the introduction of a spot ETF begins to wane along with trading volume, which fell 15% to $245 million in the last 24 hours.
- The difference between the altcoin market today and the market a year ago is stark: late 2024 was full of viral memecoins and the rise of decentralized derivatives exchanges, while now it appears the retail audience has left, or moved on, leaving a series of tokens that rise and fall based on actual development rather than purely speculative sentiment.
- This maturation bodes well for the coming cycles because it means that sectors have the potential to outperform broader trends, as evidenced by the recent rise of privacy coins during a period in which bitcoin and ether fell to multi-month lows.
- Incidentally, privacy coins have entered a corrective phase after rallying from September to the end of November. ZEC lost 29.4% over the past week, while DASH fell 22%.
