The crypto market continued to establish fresh levels of support on Thursday, with bitcoin BTC$102,925.01 trading around $103,000 while ether ETH$3,502.68 rose less than 1% to $3,500.

The average crypto relative strength index (RSI) remains in neutral territory while the Fear and Greed index is printing 25/100, indicating negative sentiment across the market.

There was slightly more action in the altcoin market. AERO slid 18% in the past 24 hours following an announcement of a merger with Velodrome, while STRK and FET also made double-digit moves to the downside.

XRP led gains among the biggest cryptocurrencies, rising by 3.5% following a flurry of activity on the options market.

The market is in need of a catalyst before confirming a potential downtrend from October's record high, or a potential bottoming around $98,000. The dollar remains relatively strong at around 99.8; a break above 100 would put pressure on risk assets like the crypto sector.

Derivatives positioning

By Omkar Godbole

• Despite the news of the U.S. government reopening, BTC and ETH 30-day implied volatility indexes from Volmex remain within their recent elevated ranges, highlighting persistent structural issues that continue to keep volatility expectations high.
• Futures markets continued to remove risk. Bitcoin open interest (OI) dropped 3.58% to $66.14 billion, with liquidations totaling $186.47 million. Most of these were long traders betting on a price rally.
• OI in SOL, HYPE and DOGE also declined, while ZEC futures saw capital inflows, lifting OI by 4%.
• On the CME, the annualized three-month premium in ether futures slipped under 6%, representing a discount to BTC premium for the first time in weeks. This does not necessarily imply relative bearishness in ether, it could be reflect an increased cash and carry arbitrage in the second-largest cryptocurrency.
• On Deribit, strangles accounted for 27% of the total BTC block options flow in the past 24 hours. That's a sign of growing bias for non-directional strategies betting on the degree of price volatility. This has been the case over the past week.
• In ETH's case, put diagonal calendar and call calendar spreads are two of the most popular strategies.
• Broadly speaking, BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias for puts, which offer downside protection, over the near term.

Token talk

By Oliver Knight

• The altcoin market continued to consolidate on Thursday following what has become an extended period of low-volatility price action.
• CoinGlass data shows that open interest across all crypto markets dropped 1.13% to $142 billion, while 24 hour volume increased by 25% to $328 billion, demonstrating a preference for spot trading over derivatives.
• Ether ETH$3,502.68 traded little changed, while tokens including solana SOL$156.26, bnb BNB$965.18 and TRX$0.2983 all found themselves in the red by between 0.2% and 1.8%.
• AERO, the token tied to Base's leading decentralized exchange (DEX), Aerodrome, lost 18.2% after rallying on Wednesday.
• The relative volatility can be tied to an announcement that the company is upgrading its protocol infrastructure to support EVM-compatible extensions, integrating with Circle Internet’s Arc blockchain and broader “MetaDEX” hubs, expanding its ecosystem reach and capability.
• Aerodrome also said it will merge with Velodrome, becoming one protocol with a unified token. AERO holders will get 94.5% of the new token and VELO holders 5.5%.
• STRK$0.1371 and the FET token also posted sharp declines — 13.8% and 11%, respectively — though both remain up considerably over the course of the week.

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