Bitcoin tops $77,000 as best week since 2023 pulls altcoins along for the ride

Bitcoin $BTC$75,582.18 climbed as high as $79,400 on Friday, adding 8.8% since midnight UTC as a rally kicked off by the U.S. Treasury on Wednesday gathered steam. The largest cryptocurrency was trading recently just below $78,000.

The Treasury’s bond buyback announcement helped extend bitcoin’s gains from earlier in the week. It’s now climbed for five straight days, adding almost 24% since Monday morning, the strongest weekly advance since March 2023.

A total of $3.3 billion worth of derivatives positions were liquidated on Wednesday and a further $1.25 billion were wiped out over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass.

The Altcoin Season index fell to 33 from 36, reflecting bitcoin dominance at 59.9% rather than weakness in other tokens. ENA rose 13% since midnight, ZEC 12.5%, comfortably outpacing bitcoin. NEAR and LINK kept up, adding about 8%.

Bitcoin has also now surpassed the $76,000 level implied by the inverse head-and-shoulders pattern that had been forming since the June lows. Traders who bought that break have made their target, which could lead to a short-term pullback with the relative strength index (RSI) also in overbought territory.

The Dollar Index is at 98.77, down slightly and off its August highs, while Nasdaq 100 futures are up 0.43% after underperforming against the wider crypto market.

Derivatives positioning

• Liquidations have cooled to $1.24 billion over 24 hours, down 62% from Thursday’s peak, according to CoinGlass data. Shorts account for $1.06 billion of that against $178 million of longs, and 152,586 traders were liquidated in total. The largest single order was a $23.59 million $BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid.
• The aggregated long-short accounts ratio for bitcoin sits at 0.865, meaning more accounts remain positioned short than long. Traders have spent four days fading this move and have been wrong each time, leaving the fuel for further squeeze pressure only partly spent.
• Open interest climbed 6.17% to $139.37 billion across the market, with $BTC futures OI rising 7.38% to $57.7 billion and aggregated bitcoin OI reaching $25.06 billion, its highest since June. Notional exposure is being rebuilt aggressively rather than sitting out the move.
• Predicted bitcoin funding rates are at 0.013%, which would mark the highest point since January.
• XRP saw the sharpest repositioning, with 24-hour volume jumping 139% and open interest climbing 15.5% as the token gained 19% to outperform every other large-cap coin.
• CryptoQuant’s 30-day apparent spot demand has recovered from minus 206,000 $BTC on July 23 to roughly minus 5,000, putting it on the cusp of turning positive for the first time since Feb. 26. The firm notes that when spot demand crosses from negative to positive, bitcoin has historically delivered a median 18% gain over the following 60 days with a 78% win rate. The figures rise to 23% and 87% when the cross fires with MVRV below its 365-day moving average, as it does now. CryptoQuant cautions the sample is small and the signal has to complete first.
• Notably, the firm’s research separates spot from futures demand, finding the same zero-cross in perpetual futures demand carries almost no forward edge. On that framing, the sustainability of this move rests on whether the spot bid that has emerged behind the squeeze holds once forced covering stops.