Bitcoin It hit its highest price since mid-November on Monday before retreating. This is the same level that the largest cryptocurrency came close to but failed to break in early December.
While some traders will short this level as resistance, others will focus on a potential breakout, which could lead to a rise in price to $98,900 – a key support level between June and November.
Altcoins have rallied, with SUI up more than 3% since midnight UTC, with a 24-hour gain of 16%, while XRP continues its early-year tour, up 29% since January 1.
There has also been notable activity in the memecoin space, with Solana-based token issuer Pump.fun hitting an all-time high of $1.27 billion in trading volume, indicating activity from retail traders. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) rose 1.5%, bringing its year-to-date gain to 19%.
Derivatives positioning
- Over $400 million worth of cryptocurrency futures bets have been liquidated in the past 24 hours. As of Monday, most of those were short, suggesting traders were expecting lower prices heading into the new year.
- BTC global futures open interest (OI) remained at around 660,000 BTC over 24 hours, while XRP’s OI jumped to 2 billion XRP, the highest level since October 11. This increase shows that funds are flowing into the XRP market as the price of the token hits multi-week highs.
- Funding rates for most major cryptocurrencies remain modestly positive, indicating a bullish bias. Tokens such as SOL, TRX, ZEC, SHIB, and UNI stand out with negative interest rates, indicating that bearish short positions are increasing.
- Volmex’s BVIV index, which represents BTC’s annualized 30-day implied volatility, reversed Monday’s modest gains from 44% to 47%, indicating continued calm in the market.
- On Deribit, the bearish bias towards BTC and ETH continues to ease as traders chase upside via call options.
- The block stream features BTC and ETH call spreads as well as BTC wide straddles.
token talk
- After a difficult year that saw a full retracement of over 95%, Memecoin is back in the spotlight. There is renewed optimism as daily trading volume at Solana-based token generator Pump.fun hit an all-time high of $1.27 billion on Monday.
- There has also been some activity on the BNB chain, with retail traders flocking to the Chinese-focused token under the “four memes” (a phrase coined by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao).
- Beyond memes, native symbols of Sui, The coin has enjoyed some upside, rising 3% since midnight and 16% in the past 24 hours, after Mysten Labs, the developer behind Sui, published a research paper on private crypto transactions, sparking community speculation about whether Sui will add privacy features to its blockchain.
- CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is at 27/100, still firmly in “Bitcoin Season” territory, but a far cry from December’s lows of 14/100, showing early signs of strength across the industry.
- However, there are some warning signs, with the average Crypto Relative Strength Index (RSI) flashing “overbought,” indicating that several altcoins may face a period of profit-taking in the near term.