Bitcoin, the main cryptocurrencies and ether (ETH) head into the weekend after being confined to a tight trading range for the past four days, with BTC stuck between $76,100 and $78,000.
The lack of volatility has led to small sectors of the altcoin market benefiting from the speculative nature of cryptocurrency investors. The AI sector was the recipient of such speculation on Friday, as NEAR rose 28.5% while FET posted an 11.4% gain in the last 24 hours.
In contrast, privacy coins DASH, ZEC, and XMR experienced a wave of selling pressure on Friday, eroding much of their rally from earlier in the week, indicating that the sector rotation is in full effect.
Brent crude oil fell to $102 a barrel on Friday, down from $112 seen earlier this week, as speculation swirls around a possible peace deal between Iran and the United States.
US stocks responded well to the oil decline; The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high on Friday, while the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 are now up 3% and 1.7% respectively from Tuesday’s low, suggesting a return to risk-on sentiment.
Derivatives positioning
- The volume of the entire crypto futures market increased modestly by 1% to $160 billion in the last 24 hours, while notional open interest (OI) remained stable near $128 billion. Settlements decreased dramatically, by 26%, to $200 million. This setup reflects a calmer market with fewer forced liquidations, even as volume growth remains relatively muted.
- Today’s top token is Near Protocol’s NEAR, which has gained over 25%. With the price increase, the OI in futures linked to the token has reached a record high of 282.53 million tokens. The OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta is positive, a signal to buy aggressively with market orders rather than passive limit orders. This validates the price rally. And last but not least, funding rates remain slightly positive, suggesting healthy leverage conditions and no overheating.
- TRX and LINK linked markets show a similar bullish profile, characterized by OI growth, positive CVD, and positive funding rates.
- The bitcoin market offers little excitement, with OI stable in the recent range of 720K BTC to 750K BTC. The same can be said of ether.
- BTC and ETH 30-day annualized implied volatility indices continue to fall. This is a sign of relentless volatility in options selling, primarily call option overwriting.
- On Deribit, bitcoin strike price options ranging from $71,000 to $77,000 dominate the 24-hour volume rankings. A similar volume concentration is observed in the ether products. A put option offers protection against price losses in the underlying asset.
symbolic talk
- The CoinDesk DeFi Select Index (DFX) rose 1.1% on Friday, outperforming the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index (SCPXC), which rose just 0.3%, and the CoinDesk Memecoin Select Index (CDMEME) after falling 1%.
- The altcoin market was generally mixed on Friday; XRP, SOL, and ETH lost ground along with the privacy coin sector, while companies like HYPE and ATOM continue to show relative strength, with the latter posting a 5% gain since midnight UTC.
- HYPE, the native token of the HyperLiquid perpetual exchange, has been its own animal this week, hitting an all-time high after surging around 60% since Tuesday.
- The move is accompanied by strong short interest and a wave of liquidations along with institutional participation following the launch of spot ETFs in the US this month.
- CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator rose from 31/100 to 38/100 this week, boosted by HYPE’s strong performance.
