Bitcoin rose $72,000 during European hours on Friday, up 2% since midnight UTC and outpacing gains in U.S. stock indexes.
Futures on the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes fell during Asian trading hours before recovering. Both are now in the green. The US Dollar Index (DXY), meanwhile, rose above the 100 mark, a development that typically puts pressure on risky assets like cryptocurrencies and stocks.
Today, however, the crypto market appears relatively immune to this pressure, with notable gains across the board. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) is up 1.1% since midnight.
If bitcoin manages to break above $74,000, a level it has failed to breach recently, with convincing volume, it could trigger a return to the $80,000 region. Otherwise, it is likely to return to a trading range that dates back to February 5th.
The war in Iran continued to rage Friday morning, with new strikes detected in Tehran and Dubai keeping oil around $100 a barrel.
Positioning of derivative products
- Cumulative industry-wide futures open interest (OI) rose 5% to $107.6 billion over the past 24 hours, signaling continued capital inflows as bitcoin and other tokens remain stable amid turmoil in global stock markets.
- Bitcoin (OI) rose to 687,200 BTC, the highest since February 25. That of Ether (ETH) reached 13.72 million, the highest since January 30. Annualized perpetual funding rates and cumulative volume deltas for both remain positive, a combination indicating investor bias toward bullish plays.
- In XRP, OI jumped almost 10% to $1.86 billion, its highest level since February 6. Coupled with positive funding rates, this suggests further deployment of investor capital for bullish bets. Open interest in SOL, ADA, and SUI futures also saw a notable increase.
- Bitcoin’s 30-day annualized implied volatility index (BVIV) fell to a two-week low of 55%, arguing for continued upside in spot prices. The volatility of Ether is also decreasing. This stability contrasts with the increased volatility in the U.S. Treasury market.
- On Deribit, Bitcoin puts remain more expensive than calls, a sign of continued demand for downside protection. For ETH, the long-term put premium has almost evaporated, hinting at a bullish reset.
- Block flows presented demand for Bitcoin sell spreads and Ether buy spreads.
Symbolic discussion
- The altcoin market also showed its strength on Friday. The US president-themed TRUMP memecoin surged more than 30% in 24 hours after announcing a “gala lunch” with Donald Trump for the top 297 token holders.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) tokens bittensor (TAO) and super artificial intelligence alliance (FET) both climbed 14% as investors continue to speculate on a broader market breakout.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” index is now at 40/100, its highest level since January 9.
- CoinDesk’s Computing Select Index (CPUS) is the leading benchmark over the past 24 hours, up 6.5%. It is followed by the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) and the DeFi Select Index (DFX), which are up 4% and 3.7%, respectively.
- The canton (CC) is lagging behind in the last 24 hours. The institutional-focused layer 1 network token is down 4%, bringing its loss over the past month to 11%.
