Market Wrap: Crypto Market Cap Breaks $1.5T as Buyers Show Up for the Dip

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $48,600 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), slipping less than 1% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $45,926 to $49,332.
• In a brief market correction Monday morning, over $1.6 billion worth of crypto futures contracts were liquidated over the past 24 hours, per Bybt. 
• The total cryptocurrency market cap broke $1.5 trillion for the first time late Monday, according to CoinGecko.

Bitcoin has fully pared losses from Sunday’s dip as the leading cryptocurrency fell from around $48,600 to below $46,000 early Monday morning. As of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), bitcoin was trading above $48,600 on Coinbase. But the leading cryptocurrency still has yet to trade above the psychologically significant $50,000 mark. 

Much of bitcoin’s choppy price action and its recent dip could be attributed to futures deleveraging. Eager bulls piled into long trades expecting a swift breakout to $50,000 or higher. Funding rates for perpetual bitcoin futures have steadily increased through February, according to market data collected by Skew, with some funding rates reaching their highest levels in the past 12 months. 

Confirming this market condition, bitcoin futures saw over $520 million in liquidated contracts over the past 24 hours, according to data from Bybit. The eager buyback after these liquidations hints at the market’s resilient bullishness after resetting over-eager bullish futures traders. 

High positive funding rates signal an increase in long positions, whereas negative rates indicate a more bearish sentiment. The market tends to reset when traders, especially in overcrowded derivatives positions, become overly bearish or bullish. 

Even though some traders may be dissatisfied by the choppy price action, other market participants are enjoying themselves. Bitcoin miners, for example, hauled in a record $354 million in revenue last week, passing the previous record of $340 million set in mid December 2017. Network fees contributed over 15% of this revenue.

Ethereum

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday trading around $1,820 and climbing less than 1% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).

Shortly after setting new record highs above $1,850, ether also suffered a sizable drop, falling almost 10% to roughly $1,660 early on Monday. Over $313 million in ether futures were liquidated in the past 24 hours, per Bybit. 

The DeFi sector in aggregate followed suit, per data from Messari. But Ethereum and the various assets in the DeFi ecosystem have since recovered, with DeFi’s aggregate performance up nearly 3% in the past 24 hours, per Messari. 

Other alternative cryptocurrencies have also recovered from the market’s dip. FTX’s altcoin index perpetual futures are up nearly 20% from early Monday morning lows, completely retracing the correction. 

Other markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are X Monday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• Cosmos +23.1%
• Orchid +9.9%
• Bitcoin Cash +7.5%

Notable losers:

• Ethereum Classic -4.8%
• Algorand -4.7%
• XRP -3.7%

Equities:

• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed the day up over 550 points at 30,083.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe gained over 2% to start the week, reaching 6,754.
• The S&P 500 in the United States was closed in observance of Presidents Day.

Commodities:

• Oil gained less than 1%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $60.11.
• Gold was in red less than half of a percent at $1,817 as of press time.

Treasuries:

• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday to 12.01, in the green 3.6%.