Major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin BTC$117,162.00, ether (ETH), XRP XRP$3.1201, solana SOL$198.37 and others, are trading on the front foot following Wednesday’s interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

Still, some analysts are maintaining a cautious bias.

“The Fed rate cut gave crypto a near-term lift, but the rally is not yet clean,” Timothy Misir, head of research, BRN, said in an email. “Institutional flows are supportive overall, yet exchange inflows and a single-day ETF outflow signal distribution into strength.”

Misir suggested traders use a bitcoin price band of $115,000–$115,500 as the guardrail for tactical risk management.

Derivatives Positioning

by Omkar Godbole

• BNB, AVAX, and DOT have all seen double-digit increases in futures open interest (OI) in the past 24 hours, reinforcing their price gains of 5% to 9%.
• BTC’s cumulative OI in USD and USDT-denominated perpetual futures continues to drop, diverging from the ascending price. Perhaps derivative traders are not participating in the rally. (Check out the Technical Analysis section.)
• BCH, TRX, BNB, BTC, XMR, AVAX, and SUI stand out with a positive open interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta, indicating strong buying pressure.
• There are no signs of overheating even in the further corners of the crypto market, as annualized funding rates for smaller speculative tokens remain at around 10%.
• On the CME, OI in ether futures is again closing on the 2 million ETH mark, while positioning in BTC futures remains considerably light. The annualized three-month basis for both tokens remains below 10%, offering significantly lower yield to carry traders than SOL’s 17% return.
• On Deribit, 25-delta risk reversals reveal a neutral to bearish (put) bias in options out to March expiry. In contrast, ether options are bullish across all tenors.
• Block flows on OTC network Paradigm featured demand for the $116K call expiring on Sept. 19 and the $100K put expiring on Oct. 31.

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• The altcoin market staged a strong rebound following Wednesday’s oversold RSI readings, with several tokens posting gains in excess of 10%.
• Leading the rally is ether.fi (ETHFI), up 12% in the past 24 hours to $1.64, the highest since January.
• BNB also notched a milestone, breaking through $1,000 for the first time as momentum accelerates toward fresh record highs.
• The bullish backdrop comes as bitcoin creeps up toward $117,300, consolidating above critical support at $110,000.
• Meanwhile, bitcoin dominance slipped to 56% at CoinMarketCap, its lowest since early January, highlighting investors’ growing appetite for more speculative investments.
• The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been one of the largest beneficiaries of Thursday’s move higher, with total value locked (TVL) across all protocols hitting $170 billion, the highest point since April, 2022.
• Hyperliquid’s layer-1 blockchain notched a record high of $2.77 billion having risen by 3.88% in 24 hours, while Sui’s TVL is up by 3% to $2.1 billion.