The cryptocurrency market was little changed on Thursday, with bitcoin and ether (ETH) posted gains of less than 1% as investors consolidated following Wednesday’s breakout.
While Bitcoin crucially held above the $70,000 level that had rejected previous rallies, it has failed to generate a bullish shift to $80,000 as some analysts predicted.
Global stocks responded well to reports that Iran had secretly contacted the United States in hopes of reaching a deal to end the war in exchange for limiting its missile production.
As a result, the Dollar Index (DXY) fell but is still up 3.5% since late January as traders try to rationalize potential interest rate changes by the Federal Reserve. Disturbance in the Strait of Hormuz would increase inflation, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise rates to keep deposits high.
Bitcoin typically recovers when the dollar weakens and falls when the currency is bullish.
Derivatives positioning
- Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) surged, with the account rising to 680,000 BTC, the most in nearly two weeks. This pattern confirms the spot price gains.
- Ether OI rose to 13.41 million ether, the highest level since January 31. Activity in XRP futures remains subdued, with OI stuck at recent lows below 1.70 billion XRP. The same can be said of Solana’s SOL.
- OI in futures linked to Tether gold (XAUT) tokens and continues to fall as cryptocurrencies rise. Investors could be shifting money into major companies as the gold price rally stalls.
- Privacy-focused ZEC futures activity is also picking up, with total OI ending a two-month downward trend.
- Annualized perpetual funding rates for bitcoin and ether remain slightly positive, pointing to a bullish bias. However, rates remain slightly negative for XRP and SOL.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum 30-day implied volatility indices remain stable in recent ranges, indicating market stability. Wall Street’s volatility index, VIX, has retreated to 21% from Monday’s high of 28%.
- On Deribit, selling biases in bitcoin and ether options have weakened but persist alongside increased activity in higher strike calls or bullish bets.
- Block flows in options presented demand for call schedule diagonal spreads in bitcoin and ether.
symbolic talk
- The MANTRA layer 1 token completed a token migration and rebranding, replacing the legacy OM token with the MANTRA ticker and implementing a 1:4 redenomination, leading to a 25% increase in the token’s price in the last 24 hours.
- The bullish narrative for privacy tokens at the beginning of the year fell flat on its face in February when ZEC, DASH, and
- Major cryptocurrencies dominated market gains over the past 24 hours, with the CoinDesk 5 (CF5) and CoinDesk 10 (CD10) indices each rising around 3.1%. The DeFi Select Index and Computing Select Index rose just 0.4% and 0.7%, respectively, over the same period.
- If bitcoin can continue to move towards $80,000 and consolidate, gains could then shift into more speculative altcoin bets, but for now the market remains cautious.
