Decred (DCR), a token created for autonomy and decentralized governance, expanded its gains even as the broader market led by bitcoin fought.
The token is up 16% in the last 24 hours and is now trading at $34.58, the highest level since November, CoinDesk data shows. It is the best-performing top 100 token over the past four weeks, having gained more than 80% after a February 8 change to its treasury rules.
Bitcoin, for its part, is facing renewed selling pressure, trading around $67,000, a weak continuation after bouncing to $70,000 on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency is down 2% in 24 hours, with ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL), and the CoinDesk 20 index (CD20) posting similar losses.
Market participants remain cautious and continue to look for put options, or downside protection, in bitcoin. Deribit said ETF holders and corporate treasuries are buying put options at the $60,000 put price that expire in six to 12 months.
Analysts said institutional flows are improving but not yet decisive, and traders should avoid taking big risks.
“Long-term investors may consider staggered accumulation (SIP-style allocation) near support zones rather than deploying lump sums at resistance,” Vikram Subburaj, CEO of crypto exchange Giottus.com, said in an email to CoinDesk.
Derivatives positioning
- The cumulative crypto futures open interest (OI) has fallen back to recent multi-month lows of around $93.5 billion. The drop shows how quickly the optimism sparked by Wednesday’s bitcoin price bounce has faded.
- Major tokens including bitcoin and ether have seen capital outflows from futures as notional OI declined more than their spot prices.
- The long-short relationship throughout the market continues to show a predominance of shorts or bearish bets.
- The OI in gold tether (XAUT) fell another 11%, extending the decline since earlier this week. Gold-linked assets seem to have lost popularity lately.
- Most large-cap tokens, including BTC and ETH, are once again recording negative perpetual funding rates. That means bearish plays are dominating the market once again.
- Participation in CME bitcoin futures is falling, as evidenced by open interest hitting all-time lows this year.
- On Deribit, one-month bitcoin continues to trade at a 7% premium over calls, in a sign of lingering concerns about further drops in spot prices. The same goes for ether.
- Bitcoin put spreads, a bearish strategy, accounted for 75% of the total block flow over 24 hours. In the case of ETH, traders looked for put spreads and mixed strategies (volatility strategies).
symbolic talk
The DFINITY Foundation proposed burning 20% of revenue from cloud engines, introducing a deflationary element linked directly to the use of the Internet Computer (ICP) network.
The remaining 80% of revenue would be channeled to node operators, replacing fixed emissions with performance-based incentives. The idea is to make the supply of ICP tokens more responsive to actual demand.
ICP price rose by approximately 6% in the last 24-hour period, from around $2.41 to $2.56. It is below the high of $2.7 seen during the period. The price appears to be influenced not only by the foundation’s proposal, but also by Nvidia’s huge profits.
Those gains boosted sentiment around AI-linked assets, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying AI is only getting better.
ICP, often marketed as a decentralized alternative to traditional cloud AI infrastructure, was one of several AI-linked tokens, including render (RENDER) and bittensor (TAO), that benefited from renewed investor interest in the sector.
