By Omkar Godbole (All times Eastern unless otherwise noted)
Bitcoin’s The price rebound sparked optimism on social media, with user X claiming the bottom had been reached and a new rally was underway. However, options market activity suggests that savvy traders remain skeptical and are hedging against the risk of a price drop below $60,000.
“While the rally triggered some bullish buying from the $85,000 to $90,000 strike, the downside skew remains higher than the upside skew, suggesting caution,” Sidrah Fariq, head of retail at Deribit, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat.
Demand for call options, or bullish bets, showed that some traders were chasing gains as Bitcoin rebounded to $70,000 on Wednesday. However, a measure of call skewness relative to put prices remains negative across all time frames. This shows that traders are still worried about falling prices and are still looking for put options for downside protection.
Building on this theme, $60,000 puts remain the most popular position on Deribit with notional open interest (OI) of $1.48 billion. By comparison, the most popular call option, with a $90,000 strike price, has an OI of $1.12 billion. Clearly, the overall positioning remains bearish.
That said, there may be some consolidation as trader positions (the net exposure of those who make markets by providing liquidity) have turned positive between $60,000 and $70,000. This means traders can buy low and sell high to maintain a net neutral exposure, thereby limiting volatility.
“Trader positioning has shifted towards a neutral to slightly positive gamma, suggesting some compression in volatility and range-bound price action,” Farik said.
Other analysts view the $74,000 to $75,000 range as a breakout level that would confirm a new uptrend.
Bitcoin recently traded near $68,500, up 4.6% on the day, while the broader market was up even more, as evidenced by a 5.8% rise in the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index. Ethereum (ETH) is up more than 8%, and XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL) are both up more than 6%.
In traditional markets, futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were little changed despite a blowout fourth-quarter earnings report from artificial intelligence giant Nvidia (NVDA). Gold and the U.S. dollar index edged higher as investors awaited details from U.S.-Iran talks later in the day. Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today’s altcoin and derivatives activity, see Today’s Cryptocurrency Market
what to see
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- cryptocurrency
- Macro
- February 26, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending February 21 (previous value: 206,000)
- February 26, 10 a.m.: Michelle Bowman, Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Supervision, testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
- income (Estimate based on FactSet data)
- February 26: American Bitcoin (ABTC), pre-market, $0.01
- February 26: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, -$0.11
- February 26: TeraWulf (WULF), post-market, -$0.15
- February 26: Figure Technologies (FIGR), post-market, $0.20
- February 26: Sui Group (SUIG), post-market, $0.01
- February 26: Block (XYZ), post-listing, $0.49
Token event
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- February 26: Lido DAO holds an update call for token holders.
- February 26: Maple Finance hosts an investor conference call.
- The Unlock DAO is voting to delegate 2,000,000 UP from the Treasury to seven active community members to reliably ensure a quorum for future proposals. Voting ends on February 26th.
- Unlock
- Token issuance
Meeting
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
market trend
- BTC is down 0.52% since 4pm ET on Wednesday to $68,590.57 (24 hours: +4.67%)
- ETH fell 1.16% to $2,075.97 (24 hours: +8.36%)
- CoinDesk 20 down 1.27% to 2,011.66 (24 hours: +5.83%)
- The comprehensive pledge rate of Ethereum CESR increased by 2 basis points to 2.85%
- The BTC financing interest rate on Binance is 0.0005% (annualized 0.5595%)
- DXY unchanged at 97.75
- Gold futures fell 0.41% to $5,204.60
- Silver futures fell 3.98% to $87.99
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 0.29% at 58,753.39 points
- The Hang Seng Index closed down 1.44% to 26,381.02 points
- The FTSE rose 0.17% to 10,824.61
- Europe’s Stoxx 50 rose 0.25% to 6,188.91
- The Dow closed up 0.63% on Wednesday at 49,482.15 points
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.81% at 6,946.13
- The Nasdaq Composite Index closed up 1.26% at 23,152.08 points
- The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed up 0.46% at 34,127.33
- The S&P 40 Latin America Index closed up 0.68% at 3,826.41 points
- The U.S. 10-year Treasury bond rate rose 0.4 basis points to 4.052%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures were unchanged at 6,958.75
- E-mini Nasdaq 100 futures unchanged at 25,380.75
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.13% to 49,471.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- Bitcoin dominance: 58.55% (+0.12%)
- Ethereum-Bitcoin ratio: 0.03023 (-0.12%)
- Hash rate (seven-day moving average): 1,058 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $29.79
- Total fee: 2.91 BTC / $194,801
- CME Futures Open Interest: 112,135 BTC
- BTC in gold: 13.2 ounces.
- Bitcoin and gold market capitalization: 4.57%
technical analysis
- This chart shows Bitcoin’s weekly price movements since mid-2024 in candlestick format.
- Although prices have rebounded strongly this week, they are still well below the $73,000 to $74,000 area where former support turned into resistance.
- As a result, the broader outlook remains pessimistic. Price needs to overcome this resistance to confirm a trend reversal higher.
crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): Closed Wednesday at $183.94 (+13.52%), after closing at $185.69 pre-market, +0.95%
- Circle Internet (CRCL): Closed at $83.14 (+35.47%), +0.71% at $83.73
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): Closed at $22.83 (+5.99%), +1.40% at $23.15
- Bullish (BLSH): Closed at $32.89 (+6.92%), -1.03% at $32.55
- MARA Holdings (MARA): Closed at $8.57 (+6.46%), unchanged pre-market
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): Closed at $17.08 (+3.52%), -0.12% Closed at $17.06
- Core Scientific (CORZ): Closed at $18.08 (+1.18%), -0.22% at $18.04
- CleanSpark (CLSK): Closed at $10.45 (+0.97%), +0.29% at $10.48
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miner ETF (WGMI): Closed at $42.34 (-0.87%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): Closed at $10.63 (+8.91%)
Cryptocurrency Treasury Corporation
- Strategy (MSTR): Closed at $135.65 (+8.86%), -0.18% at $135.41
- Strive (ASST): Closed at $8.54 (+19.19%), -1.41% at $8.42
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): Closed at $7.44 (+13.59%), +0.27% at $7.46
- Upexi (UPXI): Closed at $0.83 (+35.86%), +4.53% at $0.86
- Lite Strategy (LITS): Closed at $1.18 (+6.31%)
ETF flows
Spot BTC ETF
- Net daily traffic: $506.6 million
- Cumulative net flow: $54.56 billion
- Total BTC holdings are approximately 1.26 million
Spot ETH ETF
- Net daily traffic: $157.2 million
- Cumulative net flow: $11.67 billion
- The total holdings of ETH are approximately 5.64 million
Source: Farside Investors