Bitcoin Outperforms as It Defends Key Technical Zone Abandoned by ETH and SOL

Bitcoin dominance has recovered from last week’s lows, suggesting renewed capital rotation into BTC as altcoins continue to underperform.

BTC advanced on Thursday, with its share of the overall crypto market also rising alongside gains in select lower-cap tokens. The CoinDesk 20 Index added 2.3% to 1,690, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index outperformed with a 2.7% gain.

Bitcoin rose 2.4% over the past 24 hours to trade near $62,800. Its dominance rate climbed to 59%, up from 57.9% last week, reflecting a clear preference for BTC amid ongoing weakness in major altcoins. Bitcoin has also managed to hold its 200-week moving average, while XRP, ether (ETH), and solana (SOL) remain below that level, highlighting continued relative weakness in the broader altcoin market.

Speculative activity remained strong in parts of the market. Audiera’s BEAT token surged another 57%, extending its seven-day gain to over 500%. The BNB Chain-based Web3 gaming project has benefited from rising onchain engagement, token burns, and increased wallet activity, though it continues to attract concerns over concentration risk and speculative excess.

Velvet’s VELVET token also saw sharp gains, rising roughly 800% over the past month amid heightened trading activity.

Derivatives positioning

Derivatives data continues to show pressure on leveraged longs. Over the past 24 hours, liquidations totaled about $378 million, with more than $207 million coming from long positions.

Open interest in Bitcoin and Ethereum futures remained broadly stable, suggesting limited new leverage entering the market. By contrast, Zcash (ZEC) saw open interest decline to 2.28 million tokens from recent highs above 2.5 million, indicating reduced positioning as its recovery from sub-$300 levels fades. The token has also pulled back from around $480 to near $430 in just two days.

The 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) showed mixed flows: BTC, ETH, XMR, HBAR, and SHIB recorded net buying, while TON, XLM, HYPE, TRX, XRP, and others showed net selling pressure.

Implied volatility remains subdued, with Bitcoin’s BVIV holding below 50%, suggesting traders are not pricing in major volatility ahead of upcoming catalysts such as the SpaceX IPO. Ether volatility (EVIV) has also eased from recent highs.

On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium over calls across key maturities. The most actively traded contract was the $58,000 BTC put expiring June 13.

Token activity

Velvet’s VELVET token has attracted significant speculative inflows, surging around 800% over 30 days and more than doubling in a single session at its peak.

The rally has been driven by rising interest in pre-IPO perpetual futures—synthetic contracts that allow traders to speculate on private company valuations such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic ahead of public listings. This trend has accelerated ahead of SpaceX’s expected debut at a reported $1.75 trillion valuation.

DefiLlama tracks 14 such pre-IPO markets across platforms including Injective, Hyperliquid, and Crypto.com, with Velvet accessing liquidity through external routing rather than building native infrastructure.

However, these instruments carry structural risks. They are synthetic derivatives with no equity ownership, dividends, or governance rights, and their pricing can diverge significantly from underlying fundamentals due to thin liquidity and unreliable data feeds. One SpaceX-linked synthetic contract reportedly dropped around 45% in a single flash move.

VELVET itself has also drawn scrutiny following extreme volatility, with concerns raised over potential imbalances between its spot and derivatives markets. The token has traded in a wide range, swinging between $0.29 and $1.07 within a single day.

On-chain data further highlights a disconnect between valuation and usage, with roughly $653,000 in deposits supporting a $339 million market capitalization, underscoring questions around sustainability and real economic activity.