First Mover Americas: BTC Starts June Trading Flat, Alts Decline

The latest moves in crypto markets in context for May 31, 2022.Read MoreFeedzy

Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights.

Price point: Bitcoin trades flat and altcoins underperform.

Market Moves: BTC futures now account for 63% of the open interest in the crypto futures market.

Bitcoin (BTC) opened its first day of trading in June at around $31,800. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is trading relatively flat and has not seen much price movement overnight.

From this time a year ago, bitcoin is trading down 15%, where it was trading at around $37,000.

June 1, 2021 BTC traded at a low of $35,699. (Trading View)

Ether is trading at $1,900 at the time of writing and is down 26% from this time a year ago.

According to Charles Storry, head of growth at Phuture, a crypto index platform, the sell off is just beginning.

“We are entering a 12-18 month bear market. I am bullish long term as this is short term fear and panic selling,” said Storry.

Altcoins saw weakness over the last 24 hours after some experienced a rally on Tuesday. Cardano (ADA) has dropped 7%, Avalanche (AVAX) by 5.7% and Solana’s SOL by 5%.

Tron’s TRX was the only gainer, climbing by 10% over the last 24 hours.

Optimism (OP), the token that powers the layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Optimism, has dropped 65% from its listing price after its much anticipated airdrop.

Bitcoin Dominance in Derivatives

Open interest in bitcoin futures and perpetuals now account for 63% of the open interest in the crypto futures market. In early April, open interest was around 50%, according to data from Arcane Research. This has come as the global interest in the crypto market has seen a sharp decline.

BTC futures accounting for 63% of the crypto market is the highest level since October 2021.

Bitcoin’s dominance in the derivatives market mirrors the cryptocurrency’s dominance in the wider market, which has also trended higher over the month of May.

Open interest in crypto futures vs bitcoin open interest dominance (Arcane Research)

Joshua Lim, head of derivatives at Genesis Global Trading, said that this data suggests the speculative interest in altcoins is diminishing.

“Alts have had a rough run and a lot of liquidations and de-risking has taken speculators out of the market,” said Lim.

Today’s newsletter was edited by Lyllah Ledesma and produced by Parikshit Mishra and Stephen Alpher.

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