The crypto market rebounded on Thursday after a midweek lull, with Bitcoin up 1.2% since midnight UTC at $63,000 while ether (ETH) rose 0.75% to $1,755.
The move followed gains in the US stock market, with Nasdaq 100 index futures rising 2.6% in the past 24 hours despite escalating tensions between the US and Iran.
US Central Command said it hit 90 military targets in the latest round of airstrikes, which came 24 hours after President Donald Trump announced the end of the ceasefire.
Markets were initially sold off at the time, but the crypto remained resilient, breaking out of oversold territory to extend a relatively hot streak since the start of the month.
Bitcoin is now 9% higher than June’s monthly close and a selection of altcoins have continued to outperform, with the lightest (LIT) and ether.fi (ETHFI) surging around 35% over the same period.
Positioning of derivative products
- The cryptocurrency futures market is taking a breather, with 24-hour volume down nearly 20% at $191 billion and open interest (OI) flat at nearly $106 billion.
- Bitcoin’s sudden rally to near $63,000 is accompanied by a decline in open interest on major dollar-denominated and USDT futures contracts, from 272,000 BTC to 266,000 BTC. These divergent trends show investors’ reluctance to take leveraged bets in such a volatile macroeconomic environment. The same goes for ether, XRP and solana.
- OI in Canton Network CC token futures increased for a third straight day, with the total rising to 271 million tokens, the most since May 31. The token continues to fall and, as reported yesterday, the simultaneous increase in OI futures indicates an influx of short positions or bearish bets.
- Activity in perpetual futures tracking the S&P 500 index is picking up, with OI rising to the highest since SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq nearly a month ago.
- The 30-day implied volatility indexes for BTC and ETH are under pressure again, ending a two-year winning streak, a sign of renewed options supply and expectations for market calm.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts remain more expensive than calls across all time frames, reflecting downward concerns. The sentiment on Wall Street is the opposite: The average skewness of S&P 500 stock options shows a record bias for bullish calls or bets.
