Wall Street is piling into crypto equities, but markets haven’t responded with similar excitement. In fact, Bitcoin funding rates remain low, which is indicative of a continued caution as the world’s leading crypto asset trades around the $107K mark.
Bitcoin Traders Remain Cautious
There’s a growing disconnect between public market enthusiasm for crypto equities and the underlying digital asset market. Circle’s IPO, which pushed its valuation to $24 billion – nearly $20 billion higher than Coinbase’s prior offer – has renewed Wall Street’s appetite for crypto-related stocks.
However, Bitcoin’s muted funding rate, which has even turned negative, suggests that crypto traders remain cautious. According to Matrixport’s latest report, some investors may be betting on crypto stocks while shorting Bitcoin to hedge exposure.
Despite the renewed institutional interest in equity markets, this optimism has yet to translate into a significant uptick in demand or price momentum within the broader crypto asset space.
Signs Of Fatigue
QCP Capital also pointed to the growing signs of stagnation in the Bitcoin market as implied volatility continues to decline ahead of summer. Implied vols are now at one-year lows and appear relatively cheap, yet realized volatility is even lower, which indicates a lack of price movement.
Past data indicates that front-end volatility typically continues to decline as the market moves deeper into July. A similar pattern occurred last year, when 1-month at-the-money vols fell sharply from 80% in March to 40% by July, as Bitcoin repeatedly failed to break past the $70,000 resistance level.
This year, QCP noted that no immediate macro catalyst is present to push Bitcoin meaningfully above $110,000 or below $100,000 levels, which it believes would be necessary to reignite market interest. While US equities rallied and gold dipped following a stronger-than-expected jobs report, Bitcoin remained largely unresponsive.
As such, “signs of fatigue” are evident, with perpetual open interest weakening and spot Bitcoin ETF inflows beginning to slow. Options market activity mirrors this indecision, as traders roll their bullish positions from July to September in significant size, indicating a delay in expectations for any major upside move.
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