Cryptocurrency markets fell on Thursday, Bitcoin It is down 0.7% since midnight UTC and was last trading at $77,600.
The largest cryptocurrency hit its highest since January on Wednesday before sellers stepped in at resistance just below $80,000.
There were reports that the United States had seized three Iranian oil tankers in Asian waters, causing risk asset prices to fall. Oil prices rose 1.5% overnight to $103 a barrel.
Ethereum (ETH) is down 2.5% and is currently trading at $2,320, having tested $2,500 over the weekend.
The broader market remains optimistic, and Bitcoin appears to have broken out of its two-month bullish range. Its price has been hovering between $63,000 and $75,000 since early February.
U.S. stock index futures fell on Thursday, with overnight S&P 500 and Nasdaq 500 futures both down 0.5%.
Derivatives Positioning
- Although Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) fell to 775,000 BTC from Wednesday’s record level of nearly 800,000 BTC, it remains at an all-time high. Negative perpetual funding rates suggest leveraged bets remain bearish.
- This combination is rare. As a result, some analysts are calling Bitcoin’s current rally the “most annoying” yet, suggesting it could accelerate if bearish traders are forced to close their positions.
- DOGE’s open interest has climbed above 14 billion coins, a level only seen once since October. However, the coin’s funding rates skew toward the positive, indicating growing demand for bullish bets.
- BCH, LINK, and LTC are other coins with declining OI, indicating that capital is flowing out of the market.
- Cumulative volume delta (CVD) sends a cautious signal, indicating that in the past 24 hours, most major altcoins, including XRP, SOL, and ETH, saw more trades initiated by sellers bidding than buyers raising their bids. Meanwhile, BTC, M, and CRO are the only assets with positive CVD readings. This suggests that the broader market has yet to fully participate in Bitcoin’s rally.
- The 30-day implied volatility index for Bitcoin and Ethereum continues to be flat near the 2.5-month lows it hit recently. In other words, markets remain calm despite the lack of progress in U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks and continued disruption in oil markets.
- On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to be more expensive than calls, indicating lingering downside concerns. In the past 24 hours, demand has focused on BTC call options, bullish bets, with strike prices ranging from $80,000 to $85,000.
token talk
- CoinDesk’s DeFi Select Index (DFX) was the worst-performing benchmark on Thursday, down 2.7% since midnight UTC, while the Bitcoin-focused CoinDesk 20 (CD20) fell 1.1%.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” index fell to 32/100 on Thursday, its lowest in 10 days, as investors showed preference for Bitcoin after trying to break above $80,000 on Wednesday.
- Spark (SPK), one of the coins bucking Thursday’s bearish price action, saw its shares jump more than 70% after listing on Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
- Privacy coin Monero (XMR) is up 3.3% since midnight, outperforming peers DASH and ZEC, both of which are in the red.
- DeFi tokens morpho and aave led the sector lower, down 4.6% and 2.8% respectively, as negative sentiment continued to plague the sector following the weekend exploit of KelpDAO, worth $290 million.
