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First Mover Americas: BTC Retreats From Weekend High of $24K, ETH Options Open Interest Surpasses BTC's on Deribit

The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for Aug. 1, 2022.

Updated Apr 10, 2024, 1:58 a.m. Published Aug 1, 2022, 2:34 p.m.
BTC retreats 2% after reaching $24,593 this weekend.  (Dan Meyers/Unsplash)
BTC retreats 2% after reaching $24,593 this weekend. (Dan Meyers/Unsplash)
  • Price Point: Bitcoin reached above $24,000 over the weekend but has dipped since. Levels reached this weekend were the highest since mid-June.
  • Market Moves: Ether continues to be the hot topic among investors ahead of the Merge, with ETH open interest on the Deribit options exchange surpassing bitcoin's open interest for the first time.
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Price Point

Bitcoin (BTC) was down 2% on the day after a weekend that saw the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value hit its highest levels since mid-June.

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BTC reached $24,593 on Sunday, according to CoinDesk data.

Bitcoin price chart over the weekend. (CoinDesk)
Bitcoin price chart over the weekend. (CoinDesk)

Ether (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down 3% at $1,649 on Monday.

In traditional markets, U.S. futures dipped alongside the dollar and oil. Contracts on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were lower Monday after major indexes finished July with their best month since 2020.

The rest of the crypto market was also down, apart from decentralized data storage network Filecoin's FIL token, which was up 12% on the day.

In the news, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority said in a policy document that investment in crypto assets should be capped, with consumers warned that they could lose all their money.

Bank of America said in a report the Ethereum blockchain needs to make scalability improvements in order to hold its market position. The report said blockchains Binance Smart Chain, Tron, Avalanche and Solana have taken market share from Ethereum due to their proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms, lower transaction fees and greater scalability.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave’s proposal to launch a native crypto-based stablecoin GHO was passed over the weekend with 99% votes in favor of the proposal, its governance page shows.

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An interest piece I read over the weekend was Andres Angler’s piece on two football teams transferring a South American player using USDC. The exchange was carried out by Latin America’s Bitso, with a player from Argentina’s team Banfield to São Paulo, one of Brazil's teams. Read the full story here.

CoinDesk research analyst George Kaloudis wrote an in-depth article on the hot topic of cryptos being securities and whether it matters. You can read it here.

Biggest Gainers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Terra LUNA +28.0% Smart Contract Platform

Biggest Losers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Cosmos ATOM −6.6% Smart Contract Platform Loopring LRC −6.5% Smart Contract Platform Avalanche AVAX −6.5% Smart Contract Platform

Market Moves

ETH Open Interest Surpasses BTC Open Interest on Deribit For First Time

According to data from Glassnode, via Colin Wu, the open interest of Deribit ether options with a notional value of $5.6 billion exceeded the open interest of BTC options (about $4.3 billion) for the first time in history. Open interest is the total number of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled.

BTC, ETH options open interest (Glassnode)
BTC, ETH options open interest (Glassnode)

Currently, ether options are mainly call options, with a put/call ratio of 0.26. The call options period is mainly concentrated on September 30 and December 30 contracts, with 1.2 billion and 1.8 billion respectively.

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“The upcoming Merge is a massive driver of price right now,” said Charles Storry, head of growth at Phuture, a crypto index platform.

He said that about 40% of ether’s price movement today is because of the Merge, or Ethereum's shift from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake protocol. The Merge is set to take place on Sept. 19.

Head of Europe at Hashdex, Laurent Kssis, said that he suspects many investors have already taken decent positions at cheaper ETH levels to account for the potential rally.

“All will be down to the Ethereum Merge in September,” said Kssis. “This is an example of position building.”

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CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.

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Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.

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  • Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions. 
  • Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.

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What to know:

  • Ethena's USDe becomes fifth stablecoin to surpass $10 billion market cap in just 609 days, while Tether's dominance continues to slip.