Bitcoin (BTC) Holds Steady at $100K as Traders Abandon Altcoins

The crypto market compounded a negative week with a continued drawdown on Friday. Bitcoin BTC$101,876.81 dropped to $100,600 and ether ETH$3,412.25 is languishing at $3,270.

The move aligns with the ongoing trend in the crypto market, where BTC has lost 18% of its value over the past 30 days. The CoinDesk 5 Index of the largest, most active tokens and the broader CoinDesk 20 Index have both decreased by about 3% in the past 24 hours.

This decline can be traced back to comments from the Federal Reserve earlier this week hinting at a potential slowdown in the rate-cutting cycle, leading to a rise in the U.S. dollar and a downturn in risk assets.

Excluding AI tokens, the altcoin market is underperforming Bitcoin, with the “altcoin season” index dropping to 22/100, its lowest point in over 90 days.

Derivatives positioning

By RialCenter

• The BTC futures market shows caution and low conviction.
• Open interest (OI) is on a slow downward trend, now at $24.91 billion, down from $26 billion last week, indicating traders are reducing leverage.
• The three-month annualized basis is low at 3%-4%, with funding rates under 10% annualized across major exchanges.
• The deleveraging and muted derivatives metrics highlight a general climate of low profitability and minimal strong directional commitment from the futures segment.
• In contrast, the BTC options market presents mixed but mostly bullish signals.
• Despite short-term backwardation in the implied volatility (IV) term structure, indicating temporary volatility, the trading bias is generally upward.
• This is confirmed by the 24-hour put/call volume leaning 64%-35% in favor of calls, and the one-week 25-delta skew holding at 10%, indicating traders are willing to pay a premium for near-term upside exposure.
• Bitcoin’s price drop resulted in $601 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with 65% of losses from longs, underscoring the effects of forced selling. Crucially, with the current BTC price around $101,000, the psychological $100,000 level is reinforced by multiple $30 million long liquidation walls, making it a strong support level likely to be fiercely defended.

Token talk

By RialCenter

• The altcoin market faced additional downward pressure on Friday, led by a 5% drop in XRP$2.2780 and a 3.5% decline for ether ETH$3,412.25.
• Both tokens are nearing crucial support levels that provided short-term relief on Nov. 4. A break below these would indicate further declines.
• CoinMarketCap’s “altcoin season” index is at 22/100, its lowest in over 90 days, as traders exit tokens lacking liquidity ahead of a possible sell-off.
• Last month’s leverage-driven drawdown exposed several vulnerabilities in altcoin order books, particularly how a scarcity of resting limit orders can lead to dramatic price spikes during volatility, triggering a wave of liquidations on derivatives exchanges.
• Another concerning metric for bulls is the average relative strength index (RSI) at 49.52/100, no longer oversold as it was earlier this week, suggesting the market is now neutral and less likely to rebound.
• However, the altcoin market holds onto a slim glimmer of hope moving into the weekend: The AI sector is thriving.
• FET has surged by 23% in the last 24 hours, with NEAR following closely behind at a 22% gain. Volume profiles for both tokens indicate retail participation, with significant flows on major exchanges.