Bitcoin is trading at $62,800 on Monday, a notable turnaround from July 1, when it fell below $58,000 to its lowest level since September 2024 and sparked fears of a decline towards $50,000.
Ether (ETH) has seen a similar recovery, trading at $1,760 after hitting a low of around $1,550 last week. The two largest cryptocurrencies surged higher in Sunday’s futures open, but have given back about 1% of those gains since midnight UTC.
The decline represents a divergence from traditional markets, where Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 index futures are trading up 1% and 0.5%, respectively, after the long weekend.
The altcoin market is divided. Lighter (LIT) continues to impress, now up over 50% in the past week, while And these are both nursing losses of around 4% in the last 24 hours.
Positioning of derivative products
- Futures Market Stable, With Open Interest in Bitcoin Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), and XRP (XRP) are largely unchanged over the past 24 hours, likely due to the long weekend in the United States.
- Interest open for surged to 7.14 million tokens, the most since May 12. It is unclear whether the capital inflow is bullish or bearish. Key indicators are sending mixed signals: positive funding rates indicate bullish sentiment, but the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) has turned negative, indicating that sellers have been more aggressive in placing market orders rather than posting passive limit orders.
- Open interest in Lighter DEX’s LIT token is also on the rise, hitting a one-month high as the bullish tokenomics overhaul supports its price.
- Bitcoin and Ether’s 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, remain under pressure after double-digit weekly declines, reflecting continued options supply. This points to calmer market conditions, which often accompany price increases.
- Nonetheless, on Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, signaling continued downside concerns – although the gap has narrowed since early last month.
- Volumes do not show a clear bias, as BTC’s $60,000 put and $70,000 call are among the most traded strikes in the past 24 hours.
Symbolic discussion
- Lighter’s (LIT) meteoric rally continued Monday, adding 5% since midnight UTC and taking its 24-hour gain to 13.5%, building on momentum as traders search for the next hyperliquid (HYPE).
- LIT is the native token of its namesake decentralized derivatives exchange, which has accumulated $40 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama.
- It was also a good start to the week for PYTH, up 6% since midnight UTC, as traders turn Bitcoin gains into more speculative altcoin bets.
- CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Indicator hit 52/100 on Monday, the highest level in the last three months, suggesting optimism is returning to the altcoin sector.
- However, this indicator is lagging due to poor performance in parts of the market, including JITO, BEAT and STABLE, each losing between 5% and 13% over the past week, with further losses on Monday.
