bitcoin It retreated from Monday’s high, when it hit the highest price since mid-November. That is the same level that the largest cryptocurrency approached, and failed to surpass, in early December.
While some traders will sell that level as a sign of resistance, others will watch for a possible breakout that could lead to a run towards $98,900, a key support level between June and November.
Altcoins rallied, with SUI adding over 3% since midnight UTC to add to a 24-hour rally of 16%, while XRP continued its impressive start to the year with a 29% bullish move since January 1.
There has also been notable activity in the memecoin sector, with trading volumes at Solana-based token issuer Pump.fun reaching a record $1.27 billion, indicating activity from retail traders. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) rose 1.5% to bring its year-to-date gain to 19%.
Derivatives positioning
- Over $400 million worth of crypto futures bets have been settled in the last 24 hours. Until Monday, most of them were short, a sign that traders entered the New Year expecting a price drop.
- The global BTC futures open interest (OI) has remained stable at around 660,000 BTC for 24 hours, while the OI on XRP jumped to 2 billion XRP, the highest level since October 11. The rise indicates capital inflows into the XRP market as the token’s price hit multi-week highs.
- Funding rates for most major cryptocurrencies remain moderately positive, indicating a bullish bias. Tokens such as SOL, TRX, ZEC, SHIB and UNI stand out with negative rates, indicating an accumulation of bearish short positions.
- Volmex’s BVIV index, which represents 30-day annualized implied volatility in BTC, reversed Monday’s small rise from 44% to 47%, indicating continued calm.
- On Deribit, the selling bias on BTC and ETH continued to decline as traders sought profits through calls.
- Block flows featured BTC and ETH call spreads and BTC chokes.
symbolic talk
- Memecoins are back on the map after a difficult year that culminated in drops of over 95% across the board. The renewed optimism comes as daily trading volume on Pump.fun, the Solana-based token generator, hit a record high of $1.27 billion on Monday.
- There has also been activity on the BNB chain as retail traders flock to predominantly Chinese-language tokens that fall under the “Four Meme” umbrella, a phrase coined by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
- Memes aside, Sui’s native token, enjoyed some upside, rising 3% since midnight and 16% in the last 24 hours after Mysten Labs, the developers behind Sui, published a research paper on private crypto transactions, leading the community to speculate whether Sui will add privacy features to its blockchain.
- CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator is at 27/100, still firmly in “bitcoin season” territory, but a far cry from the December low of 14/100, demonstrating early signs of strength across the sector.
- However, there are warning signs: Cryptocurrencies’ average Relative Strength Index (RSI) is flashing “overbought” to suggest that several altcoins may face a period of profit-taking in the near term.
