Bitcoin rose to a one-month high of $71,800, rejecting the risk-off sentiment that has limited the rise in U.S. stocks over the past week.
The largest cryptocurrency remained just below $72,000, a level it last reached on February 8 before falling back to $65,000.
Precious metals also rebounded on Wednesday, with gold and silver up 1.8% and 5.3% respectively since midnight UTC. Bitcoin is up 4.8% over the same period.
This shift to safe haven assets comes as war continues to rage in the Middle East, with Israel claiming to have struck several security headquarters in Iran while Iran attacked US sites in Dubai and Qatar.
Stocks were little changed since midnight, lagging the broader crypto market.
Positioning of derivative products
- Over the past 24 hours, global open interest (OI) in crypto futures increased 8% to nearly $103 billion. Trading volume also increased, albeit by less than IO, indicating a renewed focus on holding positions rather than trading in and out. This adds credibility to the price rebound.
- Open interest in futures linked to the top 10 tokens has increased. DOGE leads with a 10% increase.
- Perpetual funding rates and cumulative volume delta for most major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, are positive, a sign of growing buying pressure in another indication of a continued price recovery.
- The 30-day implied volatility indices for Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) remain stable at levels seen before the start of the Middle East conflict, a sign that there is no panic in the market.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH make trades significantly more expensive than calls, a sign of persistent bearish fears.
- The $125,000 strike call that expires at the end of March, a bet that prices will rise above that level in four weeks, is the most traded option in the past 24 hours. Deribit said the bulk of the activity represents the closing of existing short positions rather than new purchases (bullish bets).
- Block flows exhibited demand for Bitcoin call spreads and call ratio spreads, a sign of moderate bullish sentiment. In the case of ETH, traders looked for both buy and sell spreads.
Symbolic discussion
- The altcoin market is starting to show signs of strength after nearly a month of consolidation. Ether (ETH) is up 5% since midnight UTC, with daily trading volume remaining constant at $25 billion.
- But it was tokens with low liquidity and low market capitalization that outperformed the majors; KITE, AERO and TAO are all up double digits in the last 24 hours, while PUMP and DCR are up around 6% since midnight UTC.
- The crypto Fear and Greed Index has fallen from a multi-year low of 5/100 in February to 19/100, suggesting a measure of optimism is entering the broader crypto market.
- The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) was the best-performing benchmark over the past 24 hours, up 7%, while the BTC-weighted CoinDesk 20 (CD20) rose around 5% over the same period.
