Market Wrap: Traders Ratchet Up Derivatives Bets as Bitcoin Mounts Rally
Bitcoin's funding rates are rising, a sign traders are willing to take more risk in betting on a fresh rally.
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Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $58,800 as of 20:17 UTC (4:17 p.m. ET). Climbing 2.1% over the previous 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $57,069-$59,380 (CoinDesk 20)
Bitcoin has climbed on four of the past five days, and the price is now pushing back toward $60,000 for the first time in a couple weeks.
“It wasn’t with the fanfare and fireworks, but instead just a standard grind higher, helped in part by the continued positive adoption news flow,” Matt Blom, head of sales and trading with the digital-asset firm Equos, wrote Tuesday in an email.
Several stories reinforced the theme of growing mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, echoing the takeaway from Visa’s announcement on Monday.
PayPal on Tuesday announced a Checkout service that will allow bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) to be seamlessly converted into U.S. dollars or other fiat currencies when making purchases, the same as a credit card or a debit card would work inside a PayPal wallet.
Blockstream, the bitcoin development company, is launching a token tied to the company's bitcoin-mining production, redeemable in bitcoin.
Derivatives exchange Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will launch smaller-sized bitcoin "micro" futures contracts in May, potentially expanding the number of people who bet on the future price of the leading cryptocurrency.
Tether, the company behind the biggest dollar-linked stablecoin, USDT, published an attestation verifying that it had $35 billion in assets backing a similar amount of its USDT token last month. Some analysts had warned that an unraveling of trust in tether could rattle the bitcoin market.