The crypto market remained in a buoyant mood on Thursday as bitcoin traded near its weekly high around $93,500 and ether rose to $3,200 after completing its Fusaka upgrade.
The Fear and Greed index advanced to 27/100, exiting the “extreme fear” zone as a degree of optimism begins to enter the market.
It’s worth noting that bitcoin and the majority of other tokens remain in downtrends since early October, forming a series of lower highs and lower lows. To break the trend bitcoin needs to begin forming highs above $98,500, which would show signs of a meaningful bullish reversal.
The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index added 1.13% in the past 24 hours as the market began to build on Tuesdays’ rally.
Derivatives positioning
- Bitcoin’s options-based 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, declined to 48.44%, the lowest since Nov. 14, reversing the pop to 65% on Nov. 21, when spot prices fell to nearly $80,000 on some exchanges.
- The drop invalidates the bullish trendline from September, pointing to a low-volatility environment ahead, which supports the bull case in the spot price.
- The ether volatility index fell to 72%, the lowest since Nov. 3.
- On Deribit, BTC puts continue to draw premium to calls across all time frames while ether options show slight bullishness after the August 2026 expiry. It’s a sign of persistent demand for protective puts and call overwriting strategies.
- The $100K call has once again become the most popular options play, boasting an open interest of $2.82 billion.
- Strangles dominated block flows in both bitcoin and ether.
- In the futures market, ZEC has seen an open interest (OI) growth of over 6% in 24 hours and ETH’s OI has increased by 4%. There are signs of speculative activity in FART futures, where OI has increased by 22%.
Token talk
- The altcoin market remains subdued despite broader market strength.
- CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” indicator ticked down to 20/100 after being five points higher at the start of the month.
- The move highlights how investors are showing signs of preference towards bitcoin as opposed to altcoin plays that typically carry more risk.
- There were a few exceptions to that rule over the past 24 hours: TAO, ENA and AVAX all posted gains between 4.5% and 8.5%.
- On the flipside, hedera (HBAR) slumped by 3.8% as momentum from the introduction of a spot ETF begins to wane along with trading volume, which dropped 15% to $245 million over the past 24 hours.
- The difference between the altcoin market today and the market one year ago is stark: In late 2024 it was frothing with viral memecoins and the emergence of decentralized derivatives exchanges, while now it appears that the retail audience has left, or moved on, leaving a series of tokens that rise and fall based on actual development as opposed to solely speculative sentiment.
- This maturation bodes well for forthcoming cycles because it means sectors have the potential to outperform wider trends, as demonstrated by the recent surge in privacy coins during a period when bitcoin and ether declined to multi-month lows.
- Privacy coins, incidentally, have now entered a corrective phase after rallying from September through the end of November. ZEC has lost 29.4% over the past week while DASH fell 22%.
