This week, BTC extended its breakout rally from the previous all-time high (ATH) of over USD 73,000. After two unsuccessful attempts to surpass USD 90,000 on Tuesday morning and evening, BTC finally broke out on Wednesday, reaching new ATHs of around USD 93,500 during US trading hours.
Since then, it has been consolidating, with initial support around USD 87,000. A drop below this level could lead to further declines toward USD 85,000, and a significant break below USD 85,000 might trigger a deeper sell-off to the USD 75,000–80,000 range.
Funding rates and basis spiked to unsustainable levels as BTC approached USD 90,000 on Tuesday, leading to two failed breakout attempts and the liquidation of overleveraged longs before breaking above USD 90,000. Since then, funding rates, premiums, and open interest have cooled off and appear healthier. With this condition in place and if spot buying continues (net USD 2 billion in Spot BTC inflows this week), another breakout attempt toward USD 90,000 could be triggered.
ETHBTC has retraced its entire move from early November. Due to BTC’s robust performance, ETH peaked around 0.041 over the weekend and has since dropped to new lows: around 0.0345 this morning. On a positive note, ETH Spot ETFs saw weekly inflows of USD 600 million. If bitcoin dominance consolidates or declines (currently at 60.9%), there could be a potential rally for ETH and SOL. From a trend perspective, BTC is still favoured over SOL, while SOL is favoured over ETH.
On the altcoin side, we saw a major meme coin rally, with WIF nearing its March ATH of 4.8 due to its Coinbase Spot listing, and PEPE reaching new ATHs, also largely attributed to its Coinbase listing, hitting highs just below 0.000026 — approximately 50% higher than its March ATH. Both have since pulled back, trading around 20% lower than their Wednesday highs.
XRP broke out from its March highs, mainly driven by traders interpreting this as a signal of the SEC chairman stepping down.
BTC’s 30-day at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility is flat around 58% (+0% WoW), while ETH increased slightly further, from 62% to 63% (+1% WoW). The 25-delta skew remains positive for both BTC and ETH across all timeframes, with a higher positive skew observed for BTC in the short to medium term.
US CPI data released on Wednesday met expectations, with annual CPI rising to 2.6% from 2.4% in September, while core CPI remained steady at 3.3% year-over-year.
Markets reacted yesterday to Powell’s comments that the Federal Reserve will proceed cautiously with rate cuts due to persistent inflation pressures. As a result, the likelihood of a December rate cut fell to 62% this morning, down from 80% earlier this week after the US CPI release, while odds were at 55% pre-CPI release.
Next week’s macroeconomic calendar looks calm, with the EUR CPI release on Tuesday, UK CPI on Wednesday, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index on Thursday, and German Q3 GDP along with preliminary US Manufacturing and Services PMI data on Friday.
Read more News here.
