Bitcoin, crypto majors and ether (ETH) head into the weekend after being confined in a tight trading range for the past four days, with BTC stuck between $76,100 and $78,000.
The lack of volatility has led to small pockets of the altcoin market benefiting from the speculative nature of crypto investors. The AI sector was the target of such speculation on Friday, with NEAR rising 28.5% while FET posted an 11.4% gain over the past 24 hours.
Conversely, privacy coins DASH, ZEC, and XMR saw a wave of selling pressure on Friday, eroding much of their rally from earlier in the week, indicating that sector rotation is in full force.
Brent crude oil fell to $102 a barrel on Friday, from $112 earlier this week, as speculation swirls around a possible peace deal between Iran and the United States.
US stocks reacted well to the drop in oil; The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high on Friday, while the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 are now up 3% and 1.7% respectively from Tuesday’s low, suggesting a return to risk sentiment.
Positioning of derivative products
- Cryptocurrency futures market volume edged up 1% to $160 billion over the past 24 hours, while notional open interest (OI) remained stable at nearly $128 billion. Liquidations fell sharply by 26%, to $200 million. This configuration reflects a calmer market with a reduction in forced liquidations, although volume growth remains relatively moderate.
- The most notable token today is Near Protocol’s NEAR, which has gained over 25%. With the price rally, OIs on futures contracts linked to the token reached an all-time high of 282.53 million tokens. The OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta is positive, a sign of aggressive buying on market orders rather than passive limit orders. This validates the price increase. Finally, financing rates remain slightly positive, suggesting healthy debt conditions and no overheating.
- Markets linked to TRX and LINK show a similar bullish profile, characterized by growing OI, positive CVDs and positive funding rates.
- The Bitcoin market offers little excitement, with OI stable in the recent range of 720,000 BTC to 750,000 BTC. The same can be said for ether.
- The 30-day annualized implied volatility indices for BTC and ETH continue to decline. This is a sign of relentless volatility in option writing, primarily through call crushing.
- On Deribit, Bitcoin strike prices ranging from $71,000 to $77,000 dominate the 24-hour volume leaderboard. A similar volume concentration is observed in the ether positions. A put option provides protection against price losses of the underlying asset.
Symbolic discussion
- CoinDesk’s DeFi Select Index (DFX) rose 1.1% on Friday, outperforming the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index (SCPXC), up just 0.3%, and the CoinDesk Memecoin Select Index (CDMEME) after falling 1%.
- The altcoin market was generally mixed on Friday; XRP, SOL, and ETH have all lost ground alongside the privacy coin sector, while HYPE and ATOM continue to show relative strength, with the latter posting a 5% gain since midnight UTC.
- HYPE, the native token of the HyperLiquid perpetual exchange, has been its own animal this week – hitting an all-time high after surging around 60% since Tuesday.
- The move comes with strong short interest and a wave of liquidations coupled with institutional participation following the launch of spot ETFs in the US this month.
- CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season indicator rose from 31/100 to 38/100 this week, supported by the strong performance of HYPE.
