Bitcoin Exceeds $119K Amid Altcoin Surge and Positive Market Sentiment
Bitcoin surged past $119,000, approaching a new record high, with altcoins like Monero, Aptos, and Zcash also seeing significant gains. Zcash notably increased by 58% to $143, driven by ETF inflows, gold's rise, and positive sentiment towards risk assets.
Derivatives Positioning
- The BTC futures market shows a strong bullish trend, with open interest reaching an all-time high of $32.6 billion, led by Binance at $13.6 billion.
- The 3-month annualized basis is stable around 7%, indicating profitable basis trades and positive market sentiment.
- The BTC options market reveals a complex sentiment: while short-term put premiums suggest downside risk hedging, calls dominate over 56% of volume, indicating expectations for a rally.
- BTC's funding rate on major exchanges ranges from 9% to 10%, showing healthy demand for leveraged long positions. Deribit sees an unusual spike over 60%, indicating intense demand for long positions.
Token Talk
- Plasma founder Paulie Punt denied claims of team members selling the newly issued XPL token, despite contrary on-chain data. He stated that all allocations are locked up for three years with a one-year cliff.
- Punt clarified that only three out of approximately 50 team members were former Blast employees, highlighting diverse backgrounds from Google, Facebook, Square, Temasek, Goldman Sachs, and Nuvei.
- Punt refuted suggestions of Plasma contracting Wintermute for market-making services, stating no special information about Wintermute’s XPL holdings.
- XPL's performance has been lackluster, dropping from $1.68 to $0.97 since launch, with daily trading volumes steady at $2.6 billion.