The cryptocurrency market is ending the week in a healthier position than when it began, with bitcoin trading at $61,600 after rising 6.5% from Tuesday’s nearly two-year low of $57,750.
Still, the largest cryptocurrency’s gains on Friday were modest compared to Thursday’s 2.6% advance, which benefited from weak U.S. jobs data that reduced expectations for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
Outlook on interest rates resonated for the second day in a row as the United States entered a long weekend with stock markets closed. Ether (ETH) rose for the third day in a row to add 11.5% since Tuesday and 2.6% on Friday alone. Other altcoins also advanced, with zcash (ZEC) and dash (DASH) gained between 2.2% and 3.1%.
Still, the broader market structure remains bearish on most crypto tokens following a succession of lower highs and lower lows. For bitcoin to reverse the downtrend, it needs to trade back above $67,000 and then take out $81,000, which was the local high in May.
Derivatives positioning
- Ether replaced bitcoin as the largest token for 24-hour settlements. A total of $417 million in crypto futures bets were settled in 24 hours, of which $160.80 million came from the ether market. BTC, in a distant second place, earned $97 million. This shows how bearish the positioning was on ether.
- Ether futures open interest (OI) still stood at 14.31 million, the highest since June 10, with annualized funding rates of nearly 10% and the highest 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) among majors. The combination points to growing demand for bullish exposure in the market, a sign that traders anticipate continued price gains.
- The OI in DOGE futures totaled 14.13 billion tokens, the highest level since May 16. The number has been growing since June 28, a sign of renewed demand for leverage. The DOGE situation is similar to the bullish outlook for ether.
- While ETH and DOGE led OI growth over the 24 hours, futures linked to HBAR and ZEC experienced the opposite. HBAR has the most negative 24-hour CVD among the majors, a sign that bears are becoming more aggressive in shorting market orders than passive limit orders.
- Most tokens have positive CVD, a sign of bulls’ leadership in the market.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum’s 30-day implied volatility indices continue to fall, reversing June’s burst, indicating calm in the market and potential for continued bullish price action.
- On Deribit, the most traded 24-hour BTC options are call options with strike prices ranging between $60,000 and $70,000. Call options represent a bullish bet on the market. Ether options are showing a similar bullish mood, with the $2,500 call seeing the most activity.
- Block flows featured a large condor of long BTC buying, a strategy that bets on a play range between $66,000 and $68,000 until July 17.
symbolic talk
- Uniswap (UNI) led gains in altcoins following Thursday’s announcement confirming that it will be the primary automated market maker (AMM) for the Robinhood layer 2 blockchain.
- UNI is up more than 11% in the last 24 hours and daily trading volume has doubled to $320 million, and it is still reaping the benefits of its partnership with Robinhood announced on July 1.
- AI tokens FET, RENDER, and TAO also showed positive signs on Friday, rising between 1.5% and 2.3% as of midnight UTC after weeks of selling pressure.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 46/100, still firmly in the neutral zone it has occupied for the past month as the market awaits a return to risk sentiment.
- Solana (SOL) is leading the rally among major cryptocurrencies. It is now up more than 17% over the past week, trading at $80 after falling to $68 the week before.
