Bitcoin is holding around $103,000 rebounding from Wednesday’s sub-$100,000 level. The Coindesk 20 Index (CD20) reached 1.8% in 24 hours.
However, the largest cryptocurrency remains in a technical downtrend from the October 6 record high of $126,000, which formed a lower high at $116,000 as well as consecutive lower lows.
The Altcoin market has fared even worse, shown by Bitcoin’s dominance retreating to 60% after dropping to 57% in September.
Many tokens remain well below critical support levels including and both of which posted declines of more than 20% in the past week.
The recent sell-off was spurred by strength in the US dollar following murmurs of indecision from the Federal Reserve in terms of rounding off rate cuts.
Derivatives Positioning
By Omkar Godbole
- More than $300 million in leveraged crypto futures bets were liquid in 24 hours, mostly shorts.
- Zcash leading to growth in open interest (OI), while BTC and ETH show muted activity.
- OI in futures for well-known altcoins like XRP declined, while less serious tokens like pump experienced double-digit increases, a dynamic seen before the market went down.
- ZEC funding rates remain deeply negative, indicating a bias towards shorts, perhaps as hedge holders against a sudden correction after its strong rally.
- Bitcoin CME futures positioning is light, with OI at its lowest since late September; Ether OI also declined from record highs.
- Close-dated BTC and ETH options on Deribit show boredom: some BTC traders bought $80,000 put options.
Token talk
By Francisco Rodrigues
- A new governance proposal in the decentralized hyperliquid exchange is drawing sharp debate across the channels of the protocol community.
- Known as Hip-5The proposal aims to set aside a slice of the exchange’s revenue to support a wider range of ecosystem tokens, potentially changing the protocol’s existing distribution model.
- Right now, 99% of Hyperliquid’s revenue is used to buy back the native token, hype. Hip-5 will instead earmark up to 5% of the total protocol fee for a second aid fund, AF2. That fund will buy tokens from emerging projects in the hyperliquid ecosystem, such as PURR, Kinetiq and Felix.
- Decisions on which tokens to support, and at what cost, will be made by hype stakers through governance votes. The effect is estimated to be a $150,000 daily reduction in hype purchases.
- Critics argue that opening up the protocol’s revenue to outside projects could invite abuse. One user, Altoshi, told X hip-5 “May lead to bribery” and may mirror the governance issues seen at Cosmos and Polkadot, where some token holders have accused insiders of draining dao’s fortunes.
- Others said the plan could boost developer activity in the hyperliquid and increase management involvement. The proposal has not yet gone to a formal vote.
