Bitcoin Pauses Near $78K While Arbitrum Rallies on Robinhood Chain Activity

Bitcoin held near $78,000 on Tuesday as traders consolidated after last week’s rally, while Arbitrum’s ARB token climbed nearly 30% on a sharp increase in activity and revenue from Robinhood Chain.

BTC was trading around $78,000, down roughly 0.4% since midnight UTC and about 0.7% over the previous seven days. The market has cooled after a short squeeze pushed Bitcoin from below $63,000 to around $81,400 last week.

Despite the pullback, Bitcoin continued to show relative strength against traditional risk assets. Nasdaq 100 futures fell about 0.5% during the same period.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs also continued to attract capital, although the pace has become less consistent. The funds recorded nine consecutive sessions of inflows totaling about $3.04 billion before a $202 million outflow on Friday ended the streak. Inflows returned Monday, bringing in another $217 million, according to SoSoValue.

Altcoins remained under pressure overall. The Altcoin Season Index dropped to 26 from 34 on Friday, its lowest level in more than 90 days.

Derivatives Market Lacks Direction

Crypto futures markets remained relatively balanced for a second day. The 24-hour taker buy-sell ratio showed no strong preference toward longs or shorts, while aggregate open interest stayed near $136 billion.

Futures volume declined about 7%, suggesting traders are largely sitting on the sidelines while waiting for a clearer catalyst.

ARB was the strongest performer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, gaining almost 30%. Open interest in ARB futures increased more than 10%, pointing to fresh long exposure as traders looked to push the token above resistance near 11 cents.

Funding rates around 8% annualized indicate that leverage remains relatively contained.

Monero futures also saw growing participation, with open interest reaching roughly 640,000 XMR, the highest level since February 2024. Funding rates fell to about 15% from above 50%, showing that bullish positioning has become less crowded.

However, negative open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta suggests sellers continue to have an advantage. XMR fell to approximately $525 after reaching $548 on Monday.

TRX showed a much more bearish positioning setup, with funding rates near negative 80%. The extreme reading suggests traders are heavily favoring shorts. Tron was around 33 cents after posting a third straight daily decline.

Bitcoin and Ether futures open interest remained near multi-week lows, while implied volatility for both assets has retreated from the mid-August spike.

In options, traders continued to favor upside exposure. The $80,000 Bitcoin call expiring Sept. 25 was the most actively traded Deribit contract over the previous 20 hours. The $2,500 Ether call led activity for ETH.

Robinhood Chain Fuels ARB Rally

Robinhood Chain has become the main catalyst behind ARB’s move. The network is built specifically on Arbitrum and directs 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder said Monday that Robinhood Chain generated more than $2 million in transaction revenue over 24 hours, up from roughly $1.22 million the previous day.

If that pace continues, Arbitrum could receive around $73 million in annual revenue from the arrangement.

ARK Invest’s Lorenzo Valente also pointed to the acceleration. His calculations show Robinhood Chain’s gross daily revenue increasing from $54,676 on Aug. 22 to $1.088 million on Aug. 30, almost a 20-fold jump. Arbitrum’s share grew from approximately $5,400 to $108,000.

Other DeFi tokens also advanced.

CRV rose about 14% over 24 hours to around 35 cents, supported by approximately $119 million in trading volume.

UNI gained about 8% since midnight to near $5.80 after rising 12% during the previous session. It is up roughly 34% over the past week, with trading volume around $519 million.

Aave added approximately 1.9% to reach $126.54, while Morpho rose about 2% to $2.55.

Bitcoin’s consolidation suggests traders are pausing after the August rally, but the strength in ARB and other DeFi tokens indicates that risk appetite remains present in parts of the crypto market.