Cryptocurrency prices fell in the last 24 hours, with the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index losing 1.7% and all members down. Token prices were hit by a sell-off in US stocks after tech companies Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) raised their AI investment projections, raising concerns about overspending.
bitcoin was the least changed among the 20 largest cryptocurrencies, falling 0.2% to just under $110,000 on the 17th anniversary of the publication of its white paper. The next best performer, ether fell 1.3% as the broader altcoin market headed into the weekend after seven days of overall weakness.
Directional signals from derivatives are mixed. Bitcoin futures show no clear trends: funding rates barely changed, open interest was only slightly lower, and the three-month annualized basis remained subdued.
Options showed a shift towards neutral to bearish sentiment in the near term, although overall there is a positive structural bias and a premium is paid for short term calls.
Derivatives positioning
By Saksham Diwan
- The bitcoin futures market is in a state of consolidation, with no clear trend emerging.
- Open interest (OI) fell slightly to $26.16 billion, although it remains elevated.
- Financing rates in most places have changed little, indicating low overall demand. However, there is isolated bullish demand evident on specific platforms, such as Deribit, where rates have skyrocketed to an annualized 8%.
- Meanwhile, the three-month annualized basis remains subdued, in the 4%-5% range, confirming that the basis trading is not attractive currently.
- In options, there is a shift towards neutral to bearish sentiment in the near term, despite maintaining a positive structural bias. The time structure of implied volatility (IV) continues to show a decline in the short term before moving into long-term contango.
- While the 25-week delta bias remains positive at 8%, indicating that a premium is still being paid for short-term calls, this conviction is being challenged by 24-hour put/call volume, which has increased to 56%-43% in favor of puts, suggesting that short-term short-covering or speculation currently dominates trading activity.
- Coinglass data shows $879 million in 24-hour liquidations, with an 86-14 split between long and short positions. BTC ($303 million), ETH ($193 million), and others ($79 million) were the leaders in terms of notional settlements. The Binance settlement heatmap indicates $111,000 as the central settlement level to monitor, in case of a price increase.
symbolic talk
By Oliver Knight
- Altcoin market heading into weekend lower than a week ago, with ether losing 1.3% to $3,840.
- Many tokens broke through key support levels during the period, dragging the average lower. The CoinDesk 80 index, a measure of the smallest of the top 100 tokens, fell 3.8%, while the CoinDesk 20 fell 1.3%.
- Double zero (2z), plasma gate token (GT) and all fell between 15% and 21% after extending losses on Friday.
- Some tokens bucked the trend, particularly the trendy privacy coin. which rose 5% on Friday to add to a weekly gain of 47%.
- TRUMP’s memecoin also performed well after it emerged that the company behind the token plans to buy fundraising platform Republic. TRUMP is up 35% in the last seven days.
- The altcoin market’s outlook now depends on whether ether can hold on to its current support level of $3,700, an area that provided three bounces in October.
- A break below that level would indicate weakness and a possible macro trend reversal, which will likely be reflected throughout the altcoin market.
