Major cryptocurrencies were directionless with U.S. stock index futures little changed even though the meeting between European leaders, President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky ended on a positive note.
The top 10 coins, including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), fell early Tuesday, revisiting early Monday lows, before recovering to trade flat on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinDesk data.
The CoinDesk 20 index of the largest tokens rose 0.5% and the CoinDesk 80 Index, a broader market gauge, added even less, indicating relatively lackluster trading in altcoins. The CoinDesk Memecoin index dropped 0.3%.
Still, select a few names like Mantle Network’s MNT token and HASH chalked out double-digit price gains.
Derivatives Positioning
- BTC’s retest of $115,000 overnight saw cumulative open interest in USDT perpetual futures listed on Deribit, Binance, OKX, Bybit and Hyperliquid drop 222,000 BTC to 214,000 BTC, the lowest in over a week.
- The capital outflow suggests the price drop was driven by the unwinding of long positions rather than the initiation of new short positions.
- The opposite was the case with ETH. Open interest rose to above 5 million ETH, suggesting an influx of new shorts.
- Open interest in the top 10 tokens, excluding ETH and BNB, fell over the past 24 hours.
- Mantle Network’s MNT token has gained nearly 14% in 24 hours. However, funding rates have flipped bearish in the last few hours alongside an uptick in open interest. Those holding long positions are now shorting futures to hedge their bullish exposure.
- On the CME, positioning in BTC standard futures sized at 5 BTC remains light with annualized three-month basis locked below 10%. ETH’s open interest has risen to 1.83 million, reversing the majority of a decline that took it to 1.51 million ETH, indicating renewed capital inflows. The basis, however, dropped to 8.90% from 11%.
- Open interest in ETH CME options surpassed 200,000 ETH for the first time since September, indicating increased investor interest in hedging instruments.
- On Deribit, BTC puts out to November expiry trade at a premium to calls, reflecting concerns the price will drop. Subsequent expiries show neutral-to-bullish sentiment. In ETH’s case, the bearish sentiment is seen out to September expiries.
- Block flows via OTC network Paradigm featured long positions in the BTC $120K put expiring Aug. 22 and the ETH $4K put expiring Aug. 29.
Token Talk
- Starknet’s v0.14.0 upgrade introduces a multi-sequencer setup with Tendermint consensus, the first step toward decentralizing sequencing and proving. Multiple sequencers will now participate in block generation, aiming to boost resilience and throughput.
- The release includes a pre-confirmation system for near-instant transaction updates and an EIP-1559-inspired fee model with a minimum charge of 3 gFRI. A brief 15-minute mainnet outage is expected during rollout.
- Starknet plans to expand sequencer and prover decentralization in later versions, with the long-term goal of a fully distributed scaling system.
- The shift may also have implications for Starknet’s STRK token, which is used for transaction fees and staking. With the introduction of a base fee burn and a more competitive fee market, traders can expect long-term supply compression similar to Ethereum’s post-EIP-1559 dynamics, which has burned over 5 million ETH to date.
- Solana’s DeFi TVL rose 30.4% in the second quarter to $8.6 billion, driven mainly by Kamino’s $2 billion contribution, cementing its spot as the second-largest network by DeFi activity, Messari data shows.
- Spot DEX volumes fell 45% to $2.5 billion as memecoin hype faded, while stablecoin supply dropped 17% to $10.3 billion. USDC’s Solana market share slid to 69% with a $7.2 billion cap, while USDT held steady near $2.3 billion.
- Liquid staking participation grew to 12.2% of SOL’s supply, lifting staked value to $60 billion and enhancing DeFi yields. Solana’s circulating market cap climbed 30% to $82.8 billion, ranking sixth among all tokens.