The cryptocurrency market started the week in a volatile atmosphere, with bitcoin rising from $80,670 at 23:00 UTC on Sunday before peaking at $82,400 an hour later. The price then fell to trade in a fairly tight range, just below $81,000.
The move coincided with the weekly opening of Bitcoin futures on the CME and U.S. stock futures – a period that often triggers a repositioning frenzy and a phenomenon called the “CME gap,” which occurs when the price opens at a different point than where it closed on Friday.
Due to the timing of the move, all crypto benchmarks are down on Monday, with the broad CoinDesk 100 (CD100) leading the way with a 1.5% loss while the Bitcoin-dominated CoinDesk 5 (CD5) is falling 0.6%.
Price developments are also dictated by geopolitical developments in Iran. US President Donald Trump said Iran’s response to a peace proposal was “totally unacceptable”, leading to a rise in the price of oil and the dollar and a decline in risk assets.
Positioning of derivative products
- Market-wide crypto futures open interest (OI) remains stuck just above $130 billion for the fourth day in a row, indicating a lack of new leverage flows and overall stuck momentum in the derivatives market.
- Centralized exchanges liquidated more than $400 million in leveraged futures bets, with short sales accounting for the majority of that amount.
- SUI’s OI jumped 29%, validating the double-digit rise in the token’s price. This, coupled with positive funding rates and 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, indicates increasing demand for bullish exposure.
- DOGE and HBAR are other notable OI gainers, while BTC and ETH futures remain largely stable.
- The OI of futures linked to the privacy-focused ZEC token declined by 6%, a sign of capital outflows.
- Despite the US CPI and PPI releases expected later this week, the market remains calm, as evidenced by Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, which is near a three-month low.
- On Deribit, Bitcoin calls at strikes ranging from $81,000 to $86,000 dominate the volume rankings. Call options are inherently bullish plays on the underlying asset.
- Block flows included long Bitcoin condors, a strategy launched to take advantage of low volatility and minimal price movement of the underlying asset.
Symbolic discussion
- Venice’s VVV token has more than doubled over the past month as traders respond to a series of emissions cuts, token burns, new products and growing demand for AI.
- The movement started with the offer. Venice doubled its subscription-related burn rate in late April, with Pro, Pro+, and Max subscriptions on the platform now triggering VVV burns of $2, $5, and $10, respectively, according to VeniceStats data.
- Venice then reduced annual issuance of tokens, which can be used for privacy-focused artificial intelligence, from 6 million tokens to 5 million on May 1, the first step in a planned reduction to 3 million by July, according to the draft.
- The rally gained momentum after StrikeRobot, which develops AI software for robots, said Venice would become the primary inference API backend for its robotics products, starting with SR Agentic and SR Platform.
- Meanwhile, subscription revenue is growing. Co-founder Jesse Proudman said Monday that purchases of subscriptions and credits hit a record, surpassing the previous record by 10%.
- VVV remains below its January 2025 high of $22.5. The token fell as much as 50% shortly after its debut due to insider trading concerns related to early purchases by Aerodrome Finance contributors.
