Bitcoin rose 0.4% since midnight UTC on Friday and was only up 0.07% recently after falling to its lowest level since early April the day before.
Thursday’s drop extended a decline that appeared over the past three weeks after an unsuccessful attempt to climb above $83,000. It is now possible that the rejection contributed to a series of lower highs dating back to October – a key feature of a bear market.
Ether (ETH) followed Bitcoin. It fell to $1,965 on Thursday before returning above $2,000.
US stocks continued to outperform the crypto market on Friday, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 index futures both posting gains of 0.15% as stock indicators approached new record highs.
There is no clear explanation for why the crypto market is struggling against the sectors it has historically been correlated with. The divergence since the beginning of October, however, is aligned with a reduction in debt from which the market has not managed to completely recover.
Positioning of derivative products
- BTC open interest stands at $20.05 billion, up from $19.7 billion a week ago, with speculative positioning showing slight growth.
- Financing rates remain positive on several sites, at less than 10% annualized. The exception is Deribit, where they reached 44%.
- The three-month annualized basis inched closer to 3%, led by Deribit, up from 2.2% last week, indicating a slight improvement in institutions’ risk appetite.
- Options positioning is showing mixed signals: the one-week delta 25 bias increased from 12.4% to 12.85%, suggesting slightly higher demand for downside protection.
- Initial implied volume (DVOL) is compressed to around 36 – the lowest since September – while the slope of the 1-month to 6-month term structure sits at -6%, keeping the curve in contango. Markets factor in short-term calm with longer-term uncertainties.
- Data from Coinglass shows $224 million in liquidations over 24 hours, with a 54-46 split between long and short positions. BTC ($46 million) and ETH ($43 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance’s liquidation heatmap shows $72,280 as the base liquidation level to watch, in case of a price decline.
Symbolic discussion
- Stellar (XLM) was the best-performing altcoin on Friday, rising 25% in the past 24 hours and 4.5% since midnight UTC following news 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 over the past 24 hours as the altcoin market showed strength while major cryptocurrencies showed weakness.
- One asset that continued its dismal performance of late was . The token 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 luster, with ENA, JUP, and UNI falling as much as 18% over the past week.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator reflected Friday’s weakness, falling to 34/100 from 37/100.
