The cryptocurrency market remains under pressure on Monday despite US stock futures rising around 0.25% since midnight UTC.
bitcoin It is trading at $68,710, having lost 0.1%. Altcoins like HYPE, ZEC, and XMR are down more than 3%.
Ether is one of Monday’s outliers, rising 0.43% since midnight as it claws its way back to $2,000 after a grueling weekend sell-off fueled by selling pressure from trader Garrett Jin.
Onchain data shows that a wallet attributed to Jin deposited more than $540 million worth of ether on Binance over the weekend, causing a disproportionate increase in sales volume compared to other exchanges.
That pressure translated into oversold conditions that ultimately set the stage for Monday’s rally.
Gold is trading at $5,000 on Monday, below its Jan. 29 high of $5,600, but outperforming silver and cryptocurrencies, which are down 36% and 21% respectively over the same period.
US markets are closed on Mondays due to a holiday.
Derivatives positioning
- The cryptocurrency futures market continues to see capital outflows, with notional open interest (OI), or the dollar value of total open or active contracts, falling to $98 billion.
- The risk reduction is seen across the board, with OI falling 1% and 2.7% in bitcoin and ether futures, respectively, in 24 hours. XRP, DOGE, SUI, and ADA all saw drops of 6% or more.
- OI in futures linked to the XAUT gold token rose 8% as traders continued to deploy capital into traditional assets.
- BTC and ETH’s 30-day implied volatility has reversed the massive increase from 50% annualized to almost 100% earlier this month, when prices plummeted. The reversal indicates a massive elimination of volatility risks, supporting the case for price recovery.
- The spread between ether and bitcoin implied volatility indices is starting to widen, indicating expectations of larger swings in ether.
- Funding rates for several alt tokens, such as XRP, TRX, DOGE, and SOL, remain negative, indicating a trader preference for bearish and short positions. If the market remains resilient, these bears may feel forced to square their bets, which could lead to a “short squeeze” to the upside.
- SOL futures on CME are showing an annualized premium near zero, a sign that buying pressure is fading quickly. BTC and ETH futures are trading at slight premiums.
- At Deribit, someone paid $3 million in premium for the $75,000 exercise bitcoin call option. The massive flow likely represents a bullish bet on the market.
- Still, put options tied to BTC and ETH remain more expensive than calls on all time frames, a sign of persistent bearish concerns.
symbolic talk
- The altcoin market experienced a familiar, low-liquidity drop on Sunday before a slight recovery on Monday morning.
- popular memecoin is down more than 10% in the last 24 hours but has stabilized since midnight UTC, while XRP is up 1% as of midnight despite losing 8% of its value since Sunday morning.
- Zero Layer (ZRO) continues to lose momentum after its early February rally, falling more than 34% in the last five days, including a 10% drop in the last 24 hours. The drop comes after the introduction of a native blockchain in collaboration with Wall Street veterans Citadel Securities and DTCC.
- The heavily bitcoin-weighted CoinDesk 5 (CD5) index is up 0.38% since midnight UTC, while the altcoin-dominated CoinDesk 80 (CD80) lost 0.17% over the same period, demonstrating relative altcoin weakness.
