Cryptocurrency markets rose on Wednesday and oil briefly fell below $100 a barrel after U.S. President Donald Trump said the war with Iran would end in “two to three weeks.”
Bitcoin Bitcoin is trading at $68,500, up 0.4% since midnight UTC and up 3.1% in the past 24 hours, while Ethereum (ETH) is back to $2,130 after briefly falling below $2,000 last week.
Sentiment has shifted slightly since early February after a consolidation period between $62,500 and $75,000, but the broader cryptocurrency market remains in a downward trend from October.
Some altcoins have performed particularly well, notably algorand (ALGO), which has bounced back from oversold territory and is up 22% in the past 24 hours.
Derivatives positioning
- The cryptocurrency futures market appears to be shaking rather than establishing clear directional positions, as trading volume increased by 23% in the past 24 hours to $210 million, while open interest has remained largely stable around $106 billion.
- Open interest in major USD and USDT-denominated futures is a clear departure from BTC’s rebound from weekend lows around $65,000. This suggests that the rally was not driven by a meaningful increase in leveraged positions, but rather by spot demand or short covering, suggesting a lack of conviction behind the move.
- Ethereum’s open interest increased slightly in line with the spot price, indicating the participation of leveraged traders.
- ETH and ZEC emerged as the dominant tokens, with OI-adjusted CVD and funding rates both positive. This combination indicates intense bidding in the futures market, with traders actively opening long positions and paying premiums to maintain those positions.
- The markets for ADA, XMR, BCH and SHIB indicate the opposite.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum Implied Volatility Indexes continue to present a calm picture.
- On Deribit, risk reversals continue to show a bias towards BTC and ETH put options, which offers protection against price slides. The bearish sentiment is slightly more pronounced in Bitcoin options.
token talk
- The CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) was the best-performing benchmark on Wednesday, up 2.7% since midnight UTC, while the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Cap Index (SCPXC) and DeFi Select Index (DFX) were each up 1.5%.
- Bitcoin and the major leading currencies CoinDesk 5 (CD5) and CoinDesk 20 (CD20) rose 0.35% and 0.69% respectively, indicating underperformance compared to the broader altcoin market.
- Algorand (ALGO) led the market higher on Wednesday, but was closely followed by decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens MORPHO and JUP, both recording double-digit gains.
- Assets such as ETH and ZEC have seen significant increases in open interest, suggesting recent moves have been supported by leverage rather than spot buying, which could subside on news contrary to Trump’s statements this week.
