"The market dynamics between 2021 and today are completely different," Jeff Anderson, head of Asia at STS Digital, told CoinDesk. "BTC is evolving into a treasury asset, so it is very difficult to extrapolate chart patterns onto an asset undergoing massive structural changes."
The price action over the weekend was "encouraging," Anderson said, noting bitcoin's stability at around $105,000 even as Iran and Israel traded blows. As the old saying goes: If a market does not fall too much on bad news, it indicates big players are probably going long.
According to Singapore-based QCP Capital, BTC's resilient price is underpinned by continued institutional adoption.
"The market seems to have rediscovered its footing, particularly after BTC held above the key psychological threshold of $100k despite the initial shock," QCP said. "Crucially, Friday’s modest 3% pullback paled in comparison to April last year, when BTC fell more than 8% amid similar Iran-Israel turmoil."
The market composure is evident from Volmex's 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV), which has declined to an annualized 42.7%, reversing Friday's spike to 46.12%.
Meanwhile, the spread between ether and bitcoin implied volatilities continues to widen, a sign that ether options are becoming costlier relative to bitcoin on Deribit.
The relative richness of ether options presents a good opportunity for ether holders to generate additional yield by writing or selling options, according to Anderson.
Hong Kong-listed company Meme Strategy's share price surged over 20% after the company announced the acquisition of 2,440 Solana (SOL) tokens for approximately HK$2.9 million ($370,000). Corporate adoption of cryptocurrencies is rapidly moving beyond bitcoin and into other coins, such as ether , sol , and XRP . However, last week, shares in Nasdaq-listed SharpLink dropped sharply after the company disclosed that it had bought ether.
The outlook for the broader altcoin market does not look so rosy as large unlocks loom.
"In the next 7 days, tokens with large one-time unlocks (over $5 million) include FTN, ZK, ARB, S, ID, APE, MELANIA, LISTA, and ZKJ. Tokens with large daily linear unlocks (over $1 million per day) include SOL, WLD, TIA, DOGE, TAO, AVAX, SUI, DOT, IP, MORPHO, ETHFI, and JTO," newsletter service LondonCryptoClub said.
In traditional markets, futures tied to the S&P 500 signaled a steady start to the week with gains as oil prices stabilized following Friday's surge. According to Barchart.com, credit markets are pricing in a six-level credit downgrade for the U.S., equating to a rating of BBB, just a notch above investment grade. Stay alert!
