Cardano (ADA) has had an impressive start to the year as it broke through the psychological $1 barrier and made an all-time high at $1.50. The impressive 590% year-to-date gain took place as the network transformed into a multi-asset network, similar to Ethereum, and this could bode well for Cardano's future. The rally's final leg seems to be related to the Coinbase Pro listing, announced on March 16, and this resulted in a renewed push to $1.47 on March 18. As Cardano's price increased, so did its spot trading volume and on-chain transfers, which surpassed Litecoin (LTC). The increased interest …

Chainlink (LINK) has had a pretty rough month, dropping as much as 45% after marking a $37 all-time high on Feb. 20. While the recent losses may look surprising when compared against other altcoins' gains, LINK still managed to rally 640% over the past nine months. Therefore, there should be no reason to interpret the failure to sustain above $32 as a trend reversal. On-chain indicators like daily active addresses and transactions, along with the open interest on futures contracts, continue to display strength. Chainlink was also very well positioned to benefit from the decentralized finance (DeFi) boom. Many of …

Betting on an $80,000 Bitcoin call options for June doesn't seem outrageous given BTC's bullish performance over the past few weeks. This was not the case a couple of months ago when BTC peaked at $42,000 on Jan. 8 and subsequently dropped to the $30,000 level. At that time, a 150% upside was needed from the $32,000 price on Jan. 26, and this seemed quite far-fetched. Therefore, the June $80,000 BTC call (buy) options traded at Deribit for $2,240, or 0.07 BTC. Less than two months later, as BTC reached $61,700 on March 13, the same call option peaked at …

The idea of market cycles is widely accepted in finance. The most basic principle is that what goes up must come down. The underlying rationale is that investors will accumulate when prices are low, causing prices to rise. As the price reaches a peak, sell pressure will take over as holders seek to cash out, thereby pushing the price back down. If you bought Bitcoin (BTC) in 2017 or earlier, this will sound eerily familiar. It essentially describes what happened during the last bull run when BTC hit a high of $20,000. Therefore, most crypto holders are watching the current …

As Bitcoin price dropped below $55,000 on March 15, Ether (ETH) pulled back to confirm the $1,750 level as support. This signals optimism from professional traders despite the 12% drop that occurred after Ether price peaked at $1,950 on March 13. While Ether may be bullish from the price perspective, recent news surrounding the protocol hasn't been positive. Last week, Cointelegraph reported the rising tensions between miners and developers as they clashed over the EIP-1559 proposal, which is expected to reduce fee volatility and significantly impact miner revenue. Moreover, the surging Ethereum network fees caused the volumes at decentralized exchange …

Over the past two months, the open interest on Bitcoin options increased by 60% to reach $13.5 billion as the BTC price rose to a new all-time high. The result of Bitcoin's price appreciation and the rising options open interest resulted in a potentially historic $6.1 billion expiry set for March 26. Most exchanges offer monthly exposures, although a few also hold weekly options for short-term contracts. Jan. 29, 2020, had the largest expiry on record as $3.5 billion worth of option contracts expired. This figure represented 36% of all open interest at that time. The above data shows that …

Bitcoin (BTC) price has rallied 22.5% in March, but as the price moved up, some buyers began to use excessive leverage, according to derivatives data. Meanwhile, futures open interest reached a $22.5 billion record-high, causing investors to question how sustainable the current rally is. Being optimistic, especially during a bullish market, can't be deemed worrisome. Still, a yellow flag is raised when buyers use excessive leverage because this could lead to large liquidations during a sell-off. After peaking at $58,300 on Feb. 21, Bitcoin faced a 26% correction over the following week. That move wiped out over $4.5 billion worth …

The most basic Bitcoin (BTC) options contracts involve buying a call which gives the holder the opportunity to acquire the asset at a fixed price on a set date. For this privilege, the buyer simply pays an upfront fee, known as a premium, to the contract seller. Although this is a great way to use leverage while avoiding the liquidation risk that comes from trading futures contracts, it comes at a cost. The options premium will rise during volatile markets, causing the trade to require even further price appreciation to generate a reasonable profit, so the premium is a metric …

With BTC again edging toward all-time highs, a large volume of money is flowing into the Bitcoin derivatives markets. According to crypto market data aggregator Glassnode, outstanding futures contracts pushed into new all-time highs on March 11, with open interest across exchanges approaching $20 billion. More capital is flowing into the derivatives markets, as the amount of outstanding #Bitcoin futures contracts reaches another ATH. Open interest across major exchanges is currently sitting at the verge of the $20B mark. Chart: https://t.co/ygoffzMSJW pic.twitter.com/BiJIpyTKDD — glassnode (@glassnode) March 11, 2021 Options have also surged to see record volumes in 2021, with Derebit …

To date, Ether (ETH) price has gained 85% in 2021, and options traders are still highly optimistic about the altcoin's short-term performance. The upcoming March 26 expiry holds over 96,000 ($172 million) call option contracts open interest between $2,240 and $3,520. Does a 25% or higher gain correctly reflect the current market sentiment, or are these traders simply over-optimistic about Ether's odds? Even though the effective price for the right to acquire Ether at a fixed price on March 26 is much lower, these options cost buyers at least $2 million. If Ether fails to increase by 25% from the …

In a newly released report, Swiss cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift explores the potential role of so-called “staking derivatives” in addressing some of the challenges posed by Proof-of-Stake, or PoS, protocols. Yield Unchained: Exploring Staking Derivatives shines the spotlight on existing challenges with POS protocols – namely, the opportunity cost that comes with locking up capital in a consensus mechanism. Staking derivatives, the report says, allows users to combine the benefits of staking returns and the ability to deploy their capital in DeFi and other protocols. “Staking derivatives offer a tantalizing, best-of-both-worlds approach where users can enjoy both staking returns and the …

After hitting a $43,000 local low on Feb. 28, Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied 28% to retake the $57,000 level on Mar. 10. As the Feb. 21 to Feb. 23 massive $5.9 billion liquidations caused by excessive long leverage seem long gone, futures contracts reached a $20.3 billion all-time high. This time, as Bitcoin rallied to $57,000, there seems to be no signs of retail FOMO (fear of missing out) buying, at least from the perspective of futures and volume indicators. While the funding rate stabilized at a neutral level, spot volumes stagnated, signaling that the recent growth in the open …