Crypto market remains stuck just below its early February high, with bitcoin hovering at $71,200 and ether (ETH) trading at $2,185. The sideways move comes despite renewed risk from the recent ceasefire between the United States and Iran, leaving analysts sharply divided on what’s next.
Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone said this week that BTC needs to reclaim $75,000 or risk a collapse to $10,000. Fundstrat Tom Lee took a contrasting view, saying the “bottom is out” on Wednesday, although it’s worth noting that his fund holds $10.4 billion worth of ETH.
BTC is up about 0.3% since midnight UTC, while ETH is flat after outperforming the broader market on Wednesday, and although BTC saw a modest gain, all eyes remain on whether this range-bound stability is a launching pad or a trap.
Positioning of derivative products
- Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) rose to a one-week high of 726,000 BTC, rebounding sharply from 693,000 BTC over the weekend. The figure rose more than 1% in the past 24 hours, a sign of continued capital inflows despite the stagnant rise in spot prices.
- BTC’s 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) remains positive for the second day in a row and perpetual funding rates are hovering just above zero. These data sets, coupled with increasing OI, suggest a persistent bias toward bullish plays.
- The OI on ether, XRP and solana futures also increased by 1% to 2%. However, the CVD and funding rates for these tokens are slightly negative, suggesting growing demand for bearish bets.
- CVD readings for major coins like DOGE and SHIB remain negative – a signal that some view as constructive for the market as a whole, as significant bullish positioning in speculative tokens is often seen as a sign of excessive frothing.
- Bitcoin and ether volatility indices continue to decline, a sign of market calm. 10x Research said the market is only pricing in a 2.5% move in either direction following Friday’s inflation data.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH continue to show a slight bias to puts, which provide downside protection, although they are much weaker than a week ago. Speaking of flows, the Bitcoin $80,000 call saw the largest increase in open positions over the past 24 hours, followed by the $82,000 call.
Symbolic discussion
- The altcoin market continued to impress on Thursday with MANA and AERO up 6% each, while decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens MORPHO and PENDLE rose 3.7% and 2.7% respectively since midnight UTC.
- It is worth noting that MANA’s move comes with a 25% increase in open interest, suggesting that this move was supported by leverage rather than spot purchases.
- The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) and CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index (SCPXC) were the best-performing benchmarks on Thursday, posting gains of between 0.4% and 0.5%, while the broader CoinDesk 100 Index (CD100) was unchanged.
- Traders will be watching closely to see if bitcoin can break above $75,000 and establish a support level, which would likely lead to a period of capital rotation into altcoins, many of which are still oversold after a February selloff and subsequent period of consolidation.
