Bitcoin rose more than 4% to surpass $80,000 for the first time since May as spot buying and market liquidity strengthened.
Futures positioning remained bullish but relatively restrained.
Virtuals Protocol, Stacks, Polygon and Injective posted double-digit gains, while Aave, Morpho and Ethena declined.
Bitcoin BTC$79,318.44 climbed more than 4% over the past 24 hours to cross the $80,000 level for the first time since May and extending its seven-day advance to roughly 25%. The wider CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index added 2.7% on the day.
The crypto rally started last week after the U.S. Treasury said it would at least double the size of buybacks of long-dated bonds, and accelerated as spot crypto buying and deepening liquidity pointed to “meaningful capital deployment,” according to Glassnode.
Still, analysts at Bitfinex struck a cautious tone, noting that roughly $3 billion in crypto short positions were liquidated in two days while bitcoin network transactions remained near eight-year lows.
Gold, meanwhile, kept climbing. It’s now at a three-month high of $4,650 an ounce, while Brent crude shed more than 2% in the past 24 hours as markets appear to dismiss the U.S.’ widening crackdown on Iran through its “economic D-Day.”
Derivatives Positioning
The crypto rally has paused since the Asian trading session. Even so, futures positioning remains firmly bullish, with long positions accounting for more than 51% of total taker flow. Takers are traders who remove liquidity from the order book by executing orders at the best available prices.
Bitcoin traders have little appetite for leverage. Total BTC futures open interest remains in the low-700,000 BTC range after falling sharply during last week’s rally, when a large number of short — or bearish — positions were squeezed out. That restraint could be constructive: elevated leverage often increases the market’s vulnerability to sharp, two-way volatility.
Ether and XRP futures markets are showing a similar pattern. Solana’s (SOL) open interest, meanwhile, has risen 4% over the past 24 hours, though at 66.14 million SOL, it remains broadly within its recent trading range. Capital inflows could accelerate if SOL succeeds in establishing a foothold above $100. The token’s price has ranged between $70 and $100 since February.
CVD shows aggressive shorting: Sellers have looked to re-establish their dominance in the past 24 hours. That’s evident from the 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), which is negative for most top coins, including BTC, ETH and ADA. It shows that more traders are shorting ether at market orders rather than passive limit orders.
Volatility spike stalls: Volatility (options) sellers look to be making a comeback, capping gains in bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV. The index has dropped to 45% from 49% on Friday. Ether’s volatility index is seeing a similar pattern.
Bullish flow in options: In the options market, some traders paid millions to bet on a rapid bitcoin price rise above $82,000. Bitcoin and ether’s 24-hour volume rankings also show a bias for calls or upside exposure. Still, seven-day skews for bitcoin and ether remain negative, highlighting a persistent demand for downside protection, according to Laevitas.
Token Talk
Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) is the standout performer over the past 24 hours, rallying 12.5% after opening its AI-agent tokenization platform to Solana. The rollout lets agents raise capital, set fees and transact through their own wallets.
Stacks STX$0.2659 surged 16%, the strongest move among the group, despite the absence of a clear news catalyst.
Polygon (POL) gained 12%, seemingly after co-founder Sandeep Nailwal posted that the team behind the project is advancing a proposal to reform staking and tokenomics.
Injective INJ$5.8857 rose 10%, extending gains that followed its affiliate’s SEC transfer-agent registration. Solana (SOL), meanwhile, added 5.1% amid continued ETF inflows and a network upgrade.
Aave AAVE$129.00 and Ethena (ENA) bucked the broader rally, falling 8.5% and 6.4% without clear project-specific catalysts. Morpho MORPHO$2.6477 lost 7.9%, while ether.fi (ETHFI) slipped 1.3% following a roughly 30% weekly rally.
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