Crypto market ends the week in a healthier position than at the start, with bitcoin trading at $61,600 after rising 6.5% from Tuesday’s near two-year low of $57,750.
Still, the cryptocurrency’s biggest gains on Friday were moderate compared with Thursday’s 2.6% advance, which benefited from weak U.S. jobs data that lowered expectations of an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve.
The interest rate outlook resonated for a second day as the United States entered a long weekend of stock market shutdowns. Ether (ETH) rose for a third straight day to add 11.5% since Tuesday and 2.6% on Friday alone. Other altcoins also rose, with zcash (ZEC) and dash (DASH) all gain between 2.2% and 3.1%.
Nonetheless, the broader market structure remains bearish for the majority of crypto tokens after a succession of lower highs and lower lows. For Bitcoin to reverse the downtrend, it needs to get back above $67,000 and then pull back to $81,000, which was the local high in May.
Positioning of derivative products
- Ether has replaced Bitcoin as the largest token for 24-hour liquidations. A total of $417 million in crypto futures bets were liquidated in 24 hours, of which $160.80 million came from the ether market. BTC, far behind, landed $97 million. This shows how bearish the ether positioning was.
- Ether futures open interest (OI) still stands at 14.31 million, the highest since June 10, with annualized funding rates near 10% and the highest 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) among the majors. This combination indicates a growing demand for bullish exposure in the market, a sign that traders expect continued price increases.
- The OI on DOGE futures stood at 14.13 billion tokens, the highest since May 16. This number has been increasing since June 28, a sign of renewed demand for leverage. DOGE’s situation is similar to ether’s bullish picture.
- While ETH and DOGE led the 24-hour OI growth, futures linked to HBAR and ZEC saw the opposite. HBAR has the most negative 24-hour CVD among the majors, a sign that bears are becoming more aggressive in shorting market orders than passive limit orders.
- Most tokens have a positive CVD, a sign of bulls’ leadership in the market.
- The 30-day implied volatility indices for bitcoin and ether continue to fall, reversing June’s rise, signaling market calm and the potential for continued bullish price action.
- On Deribit, the most traded BTC options over 24 hours are calls with strike prices ranging from $60,000 to $70,000. Call options represent a bullish bet on the market. Ether options are showing a similar bullish mood, with the $2,500 call seeing the most activity.
- Block flows included a large BTC long buy condor, a strategy betting on a play between $66,000 and $68,000 through July 17.
Symbolic discussion
- Uniswap (UNI) led altcoin gains following Thursday’s announcement confirming that it will be the primary automated market maker (AMM) for Robinhood’s layer 2 blockchain.
- UNI is up more than 11% in the past 24 hours as daily trading volume doubled to $320 million, still reaping the benefits of its Robinhood tie-up announced July 1.
- AI tokens FET, RENDER, and TAO also showed positive signs on Friday, rising 1.5% to 2.3% since midnight UTC after weeks of selling pressure.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 46/100, still firmly in the neutral zone it occupied last month as the market awaits a return to risk sentiment.
- Solana (SOL) is leading the rally among crypto majors. It has now surged more than 17% over the past week, trading at $80 after falling to $68 the previous week.
