In the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has seen a strong rebound, with Bitcoin returning above $100,000 for the first time since December 19, 2024. At press time, it was $102,263, up nearly 4% in 24 hours. The rebound has driven other mainstream currencies such as Ethereum and Solana higher.
Perpetual futures funding rates rise
Market optimism is growing, and according to data from Coinglass, the weighted funding rate for open interest in Bitcoin perpetual futures on major exchanges has climbed to 0.0113% in the most recent 8-hour contract period.
QCP Capital analysts downplayed the likelihood of a major catalyst for crypto markets ahead of Trump’s inauguration on January 20, noting that perpetual futures funding rates spiked sharply on December 5 when Bitcoin first broke through $100,000: “However, funding levels remain healthy this time around and we do not expect a run-style rally in the near term.”
Crypto trader Gordon Grant also mentioned derivatives indicators.
Gordon Grant pointed out that for the third consecutive year, a large number of short-term Bitcoin call options transactions appeared in early January, which in the past often foreshadowed a sharp rise in Bitcoin prices. The options market is an important tool for measuring market sentiment and predicting future trends. Active trading in call options indicates that market participants expect prices to rise.
In particular, he mentioned that the trading volume of call options with an exercise price of $103,000 expiring on January 7 exceeded 1,000, which strongly suggests that the market expects Bitcoin prices to rise in the short term. Grant also compared the current situation with the situation in early 2023 and January 2024, when a large number of call option transactions before the launch of BlackRock iBIT on January 10 pushed BTC from $40,000 to $48,000.
“There seems to be some similarity in market moves, especially as Trump’s inauguration is viewed by some traders as a near-term turning point,” Grant said. He noted that the options term structure shows a premium for dates after the inauguration, which may reflect that traders are pricing in positions driven by potential market-moving events.
Although the current market signals are optimistic, there is still some uncertainty in the market. A key question is whether this rebound is driven by short-term speculation or marks the beginning of a sustained rise in Bitcoin in 2025? This requires observing the performance of the market from a longer time dimension.
Grant pointed out that the overall situation of the options market, including volatility and skewed term structure, shows that investors are more inclined to believe that there will be a long-term upward trend this year, rather than just short-term small fluctuations, which provides a certain reference for the future trend of the market.
Coinbase premium returns to breakeven point
After a period of intense selling between December 18, 2024 and January 2, 2025, Bitcoin’s premium on the Coinbase exchange returned to neutral levels on January 4, with CryptoQuant’s anonymous Bitcoin analyst IT Tech explaining in a post that the premium’s return to the breakeven point suggests “a recovery in sentiment among U.S. and institutional investors.”
However, it is important to note that the Coinbase premium primarily reflects the sentiment of U.S. retail investors rather than institutional sentiment.
On-chain analyst Darkfost said that the 30-day rolling change in retail-scale trading volume below $10,000 has fallen to its lowest level since September 2024. With the rate of change falling below -10%, Darkfost believes this means that retail interest has dropped significantly, but this also opens up an ideal buying opportunity in the long run.
From a technical perspective, Bitcoin experienced a bullish structural breakout (BOS) after closing above $97,000 last week.
Anonymous market trader Crypto Scient stressed that $100,000 is still a key turning point for Bitcoin. Crypto Scient said: "Unless $99,000 is broken and turned into support, I think we will see lower prices in January. For me, the trigger is very simple: break and hold $99,000, otherwise retest the $90,000-88,000 area."
