bitcoin recently traded around $70,100, down 0.1% since midnight UTC.
The largest cryptocurrency has been stuck in a tight trading range between $71,700 and $69,000 over the past 48 hours as volatility begins to decline despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Oil rose back to $100 a barrel on Thursday after Iran reportedly attacked a sixth ship in the Strait of Hormuz, adding to concerns about global energy supplies.
However, the cryptocurrency market remains relatively unperturbed; Hyperliquid’s HYPE token continued its climb towards $40, adding 2.5% since midnight, while MORPHO, ETHFI and XMR all posted gains.
US stock futures continued to show weakness with Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 index futures losing around 0.6% overnight. The Dollar Index (DXY) moved back closer to 100 after Wednesday’s CPI numbers, putting an end to any potential rate cuts.
Derivatives positioning
- Crypto futures open interest (OI) has increased by 2% to $102 billion in the last 24 hours.
- OI in bitcoin and ether increased by 2% and 4%, respectively, while annualized perpetual funding rates and cumulative volume delta (CVD) have remained stable or negative. This suggests that the recent build-up in open interest is being driven more by defensive, bearish positioning than by aggressive long-term bets.
- Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has gained 9% in 24 hours, extending the recent bull run. However, the rally has yet to galvanize demand for leveraged bets, as evidenced by OI futures, which are holding steady near multi-month lows of around 40 million HYPE.
- Activity in gold tether (XAUT) continues to cool, with OI futures falling to 93.50 XAUT, the lowest level since February 28, and notably below the March 2 high of 149.72K XAUT. This shows that gold-linked assets are slowly losing popularity as the spot gold rally stalls.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum’s 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, hold steady despite a renewed overnight rally in oil and a drop in US stock futures.
- The firmness is a sign that traders are not yet seeing a significant change in forward risk or cross-asset contagion for major cryptocurrencies.
- On Deribit, bitcoin and ether put options, which offer protection against a market decline, continue to trade at a premium to call options. There is notable interest in the $20,000 put option, a bet that the BTC spot price will fall below that level.
symbolic talk
- The altcoin market continues to show resilience despite the risk-averse environment in global markets.
- Decentralized finance (DeFi) token SKY recorded a 7.6% gain in the last 24 hours, while AI-focused bittensor (TAO) rose around 4.5%.
- One token that has failed to control its peers has been midnight (NIGHT), the privacy token created by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. NIGHT is currently trading at $0.046, having fallen 10% in the past 24 hours after Tuesday’s listing on Binance gave holders an off-ramp to sell.
- The altcoin-heavy CoinDesk 80 (CD80) index was the best-performing benchmark over the past 24 hours, adding 2.5%, while the bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 5 (CD5) rose just 0.9%.
- The next move of the altcoin market depends on whether bitcoin can break out of the current range with a move above $74,000, a breakout with compelling volume followed by consolidation would lead to rotation towards more speculative altcoins.
