Bitcoin is trading around $77,700, up 1.8% since midnight UTC, after rebounding from $75,650, a price that had served as an upper barrier during last week’s rally.
The rebound suggests a bullish shift, with $75,650 now serving as support – a level that could prove crucial if Bitcoin is to make another attempt at surpassing $80,000.
Ether (ETH) is at $2,344 and its chart shows more bearish signals than Bitcoin, after hitting a series of lower highs since April 17.
The overall market is rising as U.S. investors anticipate lots of profits from tech companies. Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) are all due to report after the closing bell on Wednesday.
Nasdaq 100 futures are up 0.25% in pre-market trading.
Positioning of derivative products
- Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) fell to 715.60,000 BTC, the lowest since April 9 and notably below the monthly high of 800,000 BTC. The decline shows a steady reduction in risks as the rise in spot prices slows near $80,000, and some analysts point to the potential for a continued bear market.
- OI has remained largely stable on ETH, SOL and XRP over the past 24 hours.
- Meanwhile, traders continue to deploy capital into DOGE futures, increasing OI by 18% in a single day to 16.06 billion tokens, the highest since October 10.
- With perpetual funding rates stable at around 4% annualized and the highest OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta among the majors, DOGE activity appears to be driven more by new directional positioning than overheated leverage, pointing to sustained bullish interest rather than crowded and fragile trading.
- SHIB futures listed on Binance show a similar bullish pattern. The growing activity of these non-serious tokens suggests a build-up of speculative froth, a trend often seen before broader market pullbacks.
- The market for crude oil futures listed on Binance is also heating up, with open interest up 27% as prices rise above $100, presenting a headwind for risk assets including cryptocurrencies.
- The decline in Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, continues and has now reached a three-month low below 42%. This shows that the market has become insensitive to macroeconomic risks such as the war in Iran and rising oil prices. The Ether Volatility Index, EVIV, shows similar trends.
- The story in the Deribit-listed options market remains the same: BTC and ETH puts remain more expensive than calls, indicating downside concerns. These reserves are more pronounced in bitcoin than in ether.
Symbolic discussion
- The altcoin market showed signs of strength on Wednesday, supported by previously oversold conditions.
- The CoinDesk Memecoin Select Index (CDMEME) is the best-performing benchmark, up 2.3% since midnight UTC, while the DeFi Select Index (DFX) has gained 2.2%.
- Bitcoin dominants CoinDesk 20 (CD20) and CoinDesk 5 (CD5) both rose 1.7%.
- Popular memecoins DOGE, PEPE, and FLOKI were among the top-gaining altcoins on the CoinDesk 100 (CD100), rising 10%, 6.3%, and 6.2%, respectively.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator rose from 39/100 to 41/100 overnight, demonstrating the relative strength of the sector.
