Altcoins outpace bitcoin as celestia jumps 16%, Warsh silent on interest-rate plans

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Key takeaways

Crypto futures volume slid 20% to $200 billion while liquidations dropped to $311 million.
ZEC led major tokens with a 14% jump in futures open interest and positive buying pressure.
Bitcoin implied volatility fell to 38% as options traders priced in a calmer market.

Trading volume cools and leverage resets

Trading volume cools, leverage resets: Crypto futures volume slid 20% over 24 hours to $200 billion, while open interest rose 2% to $142.21 billion. Liquidations dropped to $311 million from nearly $1 billion yesterday. Quieter trading with positions still building suggests the forced selling has run its course.

Sellers ease off: The 24-hour long/short taker volume ratio is balanced, compared with shorts making up 52% yesterday. Aggressive selling has faded.

Derivatives activity and altcoin positioning

BTC, ETH and SOL gains lack fresh long bets: Bitcoin's notional open interest rose just 0.3% against a 1% price gain, which means the number of contracts outstanding slipped slightly. Ether and solana show the same pattern, with open interest up by less than their spot prices. The moves look driven by traders closing shorts, not by new long positions.

XRP traders are cashing out into the rally: XRP's open interest fell 1% while its spot price gained 1.4%, so contracts were closed on a rise. Its 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, which tracks net aggressive buying and selling at market prices rather than passive limit orders, is also negative. The bounce has little support from derivatives traders.

ZEC leads with new bullish bets: ZEC futures open interest jumped 14% against an 11.5% price gain, so traders added contracts to the rise. Its OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta is the most positive among majors, a sign that buyers are the aggressors. TRX, XAUT and ETH also show positive readings while BTC is neutral and UNI, HBAR and XRP are negative.

Funding rates and options market outlook

Funding signals a bullish tilt but no froth: Annualized perpetual funding rates for major tokens hover between 5% and 10%. That shows a bias toward longs but nothing out of the ordinary, so the market is far from overheated and has room for further gains.

Implied volatility keeps falling: BVIV, the 30-day implied volatility index for bitcoin, slammed to 38% from yesterday's high of 42%, and ether's implied volatility also fell. Options traders are pricing a calmer market, which matches the funding picture.

Options traders hedge while eyeing ether upside: Decentralized exchange Derive pointed to a large bitcoin put spread that crossed the tape early this week, betting on a drop to $78,000. The $80,000 put is the most traded option on Deribit, the centralized options giant, so some traders are still buying downside protection. In ether, the $2,600 call is the most traded of the past 24 hours.

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