Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced a rollercoaster ride, reaching a 15-day high of $71,700 but struggling to break past the $72,000 mark. It has since adjusted to around $70,000, despite facing resistance at higher levels after a challenging period last week when its value dipped below $61,000.
Amidst the general quiet of most altcoins, with many seeing slight declines, a few standout performers have emerged. DOGE, the original meme coin, has seen an impressive surge, breaking past the $0.2 mark and reaching as high as $0.23 for the first time in over three years. Although it has seen a slight retraction, DOGE remains over 5% up, trading north of $0.21.
Another notable mover is Solana-based dogwifhat (WIF), which surged for the second day, leading the meme coin category as the broader market remained little changed ahead of the long weekend. WIF touched the $4 mark early Friday before retreating, outpacing other niches such as DeFi and exchange tokens. Bets on DOGE-tracked futures jumped to a record $2 billion, indicating expectations of future price volatility with a bias toward longs.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has also seen an uptick of 3% ahead of its second halving, trading above $580. Binance Coin (BNB) finds itself in positive territory amidst a sea of red among the larger-cap altcoins.
On the other hand, several popular altcoins like ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, TON, SHIB, DOT, and LINK have experienced minor retractions, ranging between 1% and 3%. This has contributed to the total crypto market capitalization slipping by about $30 billion, now standing at $2.770 trillion according to CoinGecko.
Bitcoin’s market dominance has slightly decreased to 49.7%, indicating a more distributed interest across various cryptocurrencies. The market’s current state suggests signs of upcoming volatility, hinting at an interesting weekend ahead for traders and investors.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin remained above the key $69,000 mark following the quarterly expiry event, suggesting that the pre-halving retracement may indeed be over. Over $15.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency futures options expired on Deribit on March 29, with $9.53 billion representing the notional value of Bitcoin options expiring. While options expiry can lead to heightened volatility, the price impact was minimal, indicating that delta hedging has largely concluded.
As the crypto landscape continues to evolve, these movements highlight the unpredictable nature of digital currencies, with meme coins like DOGE and WIF making surprising leaps, major players like Bitcoin facing resistance at key levels, and the overall market cap displaying signs of potential volatility ahead.
