bitcoin It added as much as 0.4% since midnight UTC on Friday and was recently up just 0.07% after falling to its lowest level since early April the previous day.
Thursday’s decline extended a decline that has emerged over the past three weeks after a failed attempt to rise above $83,000. There is now a chance that the rejection contributed to a series of lower highs dating back to October, a key feature of a bear market.
Ether (ETH) tracked bitcoin. It fell to $1,965 on Thursday before recovering above $2,000.
US stocks continued to outperform the cryptocurrency market on Friday, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 index futures posting 0.15% gains as stock indicators approached new all-time highs.
There is no clear explanation as to why the cryptocurrency market is struggling against sectors it has historically been correlated with. However, the divergence since early October aligns with a disappearance of leverage from which the market has failed to fully recover.
Derivatives positioning
- BTC open interest stands at $20.05 billion, up from $19.7 billion a week ago, with speculative positioning showing slight growth.
- Funding rates remain positive in multiple locations, below 10% annualized. The exception is Deribit, where they increased to 44%.
- The three-month annualized basis approached 3%, led by Deribit, rising from 2.2% last week, pointing to a slight improvement in institutional risk appetite.
- Options positioning is showing mixed signals, with the 25-week delta bias rising to 12.85% from 12.4%, suggesting slightly higher demand for downside protection.
- The implied initial volume (DVOL) has dropped to around 36 (the lowest since September), while the slope of the 1-6 month term structure is at -6%, keeping the curve in contango. Markets are pricing short-term calm alongside longer-term uncertainty.
- Coinglass data shows $224 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 54-46 split between long and short positions. BTC ($46 million) and ETH ($43 million) were the leaders in terms of notional settlements. The Binance settlement heatmap indicates $72,280 as the central settlement level to monitor, in case of a price drop.
symbolic talk
- Stellar (XLM) was the top-performing altcoin on Friday, rising 25% in the last 24 hours and 4.5% since midnight UTC after it was announced that The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) plans to connect its tokenized securities platform to the network.
- There were also double-digit gains for ALGO, INJ, HBAR and HYPE in the last 24 hours as the altcoin market showed strength while major cryptocurrencies showed weakness.
- One asset that continued its dismal performance lately was . The token that emerged from a Bitcoin fork in late 2017 lost 7.2% of its value in the last 24 hours and has now lost 20% in the last week alone.
- DeFi tokens are also losing their shine: ENA, JUP, and UNI have fallen by up to 18% over the past week.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator reflected Friday’s weakness, falling to 34/100 from 37/100.
