Market Wrap: Cryptos Pull Back, Traders Eye Opportunities in Ether Versus Bitcoin

Bitcoin (BTC) retreated from a high of $47,431 on Monday as bullish sentiment waned.

Some alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) such as Solana’s SOL and Polkadot’s DOT token declined by as much as 6% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 2% decline in BTC and ETH over the same period.

Meanwhile, WAVES fell by 25% after USDN, an algorithmic stablecoin of the Waves ecosystem, lost its U.S. dollar peg. Last week, several people on Twitter accused the Waves team of manipulating the price of its native token through its decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Vires.finance.

Just launched! Sign up for Market Wrap, our daily newsletter explaining what happened today in crypto markets – and why.

Despite the current pullback, some analysts remain optimistic about bitcoin’s future price direction, pointing to improving blockchain data.

“BTC is flowing out of exchanges at a rate of over 96,000 BTC per month, which means strong accumulation is taking place,” Glassnode, a crypto data provider, wrote in a blog post on Monday. Both small and large-size holders have been accumulating bitcoin, especially after the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) purchased more than 30,000 BTC over the past week (track LFT reserve purchases here).

Still, the rise in BTC demand will need to be sustained to support the price recovery. “A breakout of the 200-day moving average is required to confirm bullish sentiment,” Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at FxPro, wrote in an email. “Breaking out of the $45K-48K range could signal the start of a broader trend in the direction of the breakout.”

Bitcoin’s trading volume across spot exchanges ticked lower over the past few days, according to CoinDesk data. There has been a persistent decline in trading activity since the Feb. 24 price dip toward $34,500, indicating some uncertainty among market participants despite the recent price rally.

Similarly, volatility in the bitcoin options market is also trending lower, while some traders have positioned themselves for a bullish run in the spot price.

“Our conviction view now is to be short volatility as macroeconomic factors place pressure on markets while the LFG [buying] supports the market,” QCP Capital, a Singapore-based crypto trading firm, wrote in a Telegram announcement. “We think crypto prices will grind higher toward the second half of the year and any dip will be met with confident buying.”

Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is up by 28% over the past month, compared with a 14% rise in bitcoin.

Further, ETH’s put/call ratio significantly increased at the end of March, which means traders began to sell far out-of-the-money downside protection. The more negative skew in ETH presents an opportunity for some traders, according to Gregoire Magadini, CEO of Genesis Volatility.

“The seven-day option skew is about -8 points, while BTC is only -4 points, despite the overall at-the-month implied volatility spread between ETH and BTC being rather close,” Magadini wrote in a message to CoinDesk. “For those looking to buy volatility, this means the short-term ETH calls are very cheap compared with similar BTC calls.”

This chart shows the ETH/BTC price ratio, which is approaching initial resistance at 0.076. The ratio is overbought on the daily chart, which typically precedes a brief pullback. The next major resistance level is at 0.082, which is roughly 8% away.

Digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower.

Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.