Bitcoin climbed to its highest level in a week on Wednesday as Asian technology shares recovered and news of a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger boosted market sentiment.
Bitcoin (BTC) traded around $83,500, reaching $83,725.98 at its weekly peak and gaining 0.6% since midnight UTC. Improving corporate earnings helped drive the rebound in Asian stocks, lifting demand for risk-sensitive assets.
SpaceX and Super Micro Computer (SMCI) helped set the tone after delivering strong results in the U.S. on Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi rose 3.29%, while Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.44%. Elon Musk announced that SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) had established special committees to explore a possible merger. The combination would bring together more than 30,000 BTC, valued at roughly $2.5 billion, held on the companies’ balance sheets.
The broader crypto market also moved higher. Ether (ETH) gained 0.6% to around $2,460, while the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) increased 0.47% and the CoinDesk 5 (CD5) rose 0.64%. Memecoins outperformed, with the CoinDesk Memecoin Index advancing 1.2%, compared with a 0.84% gain for the CoinDesk 100.
Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade is scheduled to launch Wednesday, targeting transaction finality of approximately 150 milliseconds. Meta Platforms (META) is due to report earnings after the U.S. market closes.
Crypto derivatives activity increases
Crypto futures trading accelerated over the past 24 hours, with total volume rising 19% to $190 billion. Open interest climbed nearly 4% to $145 billion, while liquidations jumped 76% to $284 million. The taker long-to-short volume ratio stood at roughly 53% to 47%, pointing to a moderate tilt toward bullish positions.
Bitcoin and Ether’s rallies have not been accompanied by a proportionate increase in new leveraged bets. BTC gained 2.6% and ETH rose 3.35% over 24 hours, while their futures open interest increased 3% and 2%, respectively. Bitcoin’s price and open interest moved at similar rates, suggesting limited fresh capital entering the market. Ether’s slower OI growth relative to its price may indicate that traders reduced their exposure in coin terms. Overall, derivatives positioning remains relatively light compared with historical highs.
Privacy tokens attracted additional leverage. Zcash (ZEC) open interest surged 24% as its price climbed 12%, indicating that traders were adding positions. Its annualized funding rate reached 10%, while its 24-hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) remained negative. This suggests that sellers continued hitting bids despite the price increase.
Monero (XMR) open interest increased 8% to more than $300 million, approaching record levels. Its spot price rose 2%, and its funding rate reached 4%. Monero also recorded a positive CVD, distinguishing it from other major cryptocurrencies.
Short sellers in BTW faced significant funding costs, with the token’s annualized funding rate falling to minus 77%. The negative reading indicates that bearish traders are paying heavily to maintain their positions, leaving the token vulnerable to a potential short squeeze if prices rebound sharply. Arbitrum (ARB) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) also recorded slightly negative funding rates.
Bitcoin and Ether options show mixed signals
Expected volatility has eased for both Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, fell below 40%, reversing its brief rise above 42% on October 15. Ether’s EVIV showed a similar decline, suggesting options traders anticipate relatively stable market conditions.
Bitcoin options continued to favor downside protection. Deribit’s one-month put-call skew stood at 8%, indicating that put options carried a relative premium over calls. The one-week and three-month measures showed a similar bias. However, calls with strike prices above Bitcoin’s current market price ranked among the five most-traded positions. Much of this activity involved complex, multi-leg synthetic strategies rather than direct bullish bets.
Ether options also showed a preference for puts, although the bias was weaker than in Bitcoin’s market. Trading volumes reflected mixed sentiment among ETH options traders.
Altcoin movements
Zcash (ZEC) rose 0.9% after midnight UTC to approximately $1,260, extending its 24-hour gain to around 11%. The rally followed developers’ announcement that the NU7 upgrade is scheduled for activation in November. The upgrade will shorten block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, enabling payments to confirm three times faster. It will also allocate 60% of transaction fees to a reserve for gradual distribution. Despite the recovery, ZEC remains down roughly 12% over the past month.
Near Protocol (NEAR) was the strongest performer in the CoinDesk 100, climbing 6% to approximately $5.23. The advance coincided with growing activity in NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap product that directs a portion of its fees toward token buybacks. A separate governance proposal seeks to reduce annual token issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over two years.
Ethena (ENA) gained 4.8%, recovering after falling approximately 22% over the past month. The token powers the ecosystem surrounding USDe, a synthetic dollar whose supply currently stands near $4.7 billion. That remains below the $7.5 billion threshold required to initiate ENA buybacks.
Aerodrome (AERO) recorded the largest decline in the CoinDesk 100, dropping 4.4% and surrendering part of its roughly 6% weekly advance. Morpho (MORPHO) also fell 2.7% as decentralized finance tokens underperformed the broader market. The sector index rose just 0.22%, trailing the CoinDesk 100’s 0.84% gain.
Injective (INJ) declined 2.1%, giving back some of its approximately 18% gain over the past month. The token’s recent rally had been supported by pending applications for U.S. exchange-traded funds linked to INJ.
