Bitcoin pushes back, altcoins lose more

Market picture

Market capitalisation is down 2.2% today and more than 4.6% in seven days to $3.34 trillion. Bitcoin’s fluctuations are creating briefly higher volatility in older altcoins: BTC’s 1.7% decline contrasts with ETH’s 3.5% drop, XRP’s 4% weakening, SOL’s 4.6% decline and Doge’s 8.5% pullback.

Bitcoin was down to $104.7K on Friday morning, stabilising at $106.0K by the start of active European trading, showing a fourth day of declines. Technically, a pullback down to $103K would fit into a technical correction. Even a failure to $99K would formally satisfy the Fibonacci retracement pattern. However, even 103 looks like a strong enough local support for the coming days.

The successful Telegram bond offering allowed TON to swim against the market, adding 0.5% in one day and 5% in seven days to $3.11. The rebound from multi-month highs has no significant obstacles until $4.20, where the early April peak and the 200-day moving average combine.

News background

Volmex warns of a possible increase in Bitcoin’s price on 30 May, when $10.1 bn worth of BTC options will expire on the Deribit platform.

Coindesk noted that wallet owners with balances exceeding 10,000 BTC have shifted from buying to selling, while investors with smaller positions continue to accumulate BTC. In recent days, whales have started depositing Bitcoins back into exchange accounts, which is usually associated with preparing for sales.

BTC is benefiting from a capital flight from the gold market. Over the past five weeks, precious metal-focused specialised exchange-traded funds have lost around $2.8bn. In contrast, bitcoin-ETFs have raised $9bn over the same period.

The derivatives market is showing increasing leverage among investors. Since April, the volume of open interest in Bitcoin futures has increased by 51%, while options have increased by 126%.

Two companies, StablR and Oobit, backed by Tether, introduced stablecoins in Europe that are compliant with the EU’s Cryptocurrency Regulation Act (MiCA). The launch follows the withdrawal of the issuer of the ‘stablecoin’ USDT from the European market due to non-compliance with the MiCA law.