Crypto markets remained largely flat over the past 24 hours, with bitcoin holding near $89,900 after retreating from last week’s post-Fed highs, while altcoins continued to lag amid persistent risk-off sentiment.
The week began with muted price action, echoing the close of last week, as overall sentiment slipped back into the “extreme fear” zone.
Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded slightly from Sunday’s low around $88,000 but remains below last week’s peak of $94,300 following the Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate cut.
Altcoins showed limited movement. Ether (ETH) and TRX rose by less than 2% over the past day, while more than half of the top 100 tokens traded lower, reflecting waning volatility and a cautious market mood.
Broader indices painted a mixed picture. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) Index inched up 0.16%, while the wider CoinDesk 80 (CD80) fell 0.77%, underscoring weakness among smaller, riskier tokens.
Derivatives positioning
Open interest increased in DOGE, HYPE, SOL, and ETH over the past 24 hours, while ZEC, BNB, AAVE, TRX, and several smaller tokens saw outflows. Bitcoin open interest remained mostly unchanged.
DOGE futures open interest climbed to 10.80 billion DOGE—the highest since Nov. 20—paired with moderately positive funding rates, signaling bullish positioning.
XRP’s open interest rose more than 3% as it tests the long-standing $2 support level. Funding rates remain neutral, but a breakdown could attract short sellers and push rates negative.
Short dominance is evident in XLM, MNT, and HBAR, which are posting negative funding rates. On Deribit, BTC’s front-end put skew has eased, while ETH’s front-end puts remain pricier, pointing to a bearish bias in the ETH/BTC pair. Block flows included BTC calendar spreads and ETH put spreads.
Token talk
Altcoins broadly underperformed bitcoin, with tokens such as AERO, TAO, ZEC, and SKY falling as much as 4.5%.
Liquid staking tokens were a relative bright spot. Lido (LDO) and ETHFI both gained around 2%, supported in ETHFI’s case by a campaign offering 10% ETH cashback for ether.fi card users.
CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” index stands at 19 out of 100, slightly above last week’s 16 but far below September’s high of 78, indicating continued investor preference for bitcoin and other large-cap tokens over speculative assets.
CoinGlass data shows bitcoin dominance has risen steadily in recent months, climbing from 56.8% in September to 58.4%, even as thousands of new tokens have entered the market.
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