Crypto Market Update

The crypto market appears to have stabilized; however, traders are proceeding with caution while dealing with altcoins, like XRP, and continuing to rotate money into market leader Bitcoin (BTC).

Payments-focused XRP, which Ripple uses to facilitate cross-border payments, has risen over 3% to $2.24 in the past 24 hours, primarily on hopes that the legal battle between blockchain company Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could conclude soon.

Amid the price rise, cumulative open interest in perpetual futures listed across major exchanges has stabilized near 1.35 billion XRP. Annualized funding rates and cumulative volume delta are printing negative, according to data source Velo.

XRP’s Annualized Funding Rates

Negative funding rates mean that shorts are paying fees to counterparties to keep their bearish bets open, showing the dominance of bearish short positions in the market. The negative cumulative volume delta, which measures net capital inflows into the market, indicates that selling volume has accumulated more than buying volume, potentially signaling a bearish trend.

Market Indicators

Both indicators cast doubt on whether XRP’s price rise has legs. As of press time, several other large-cap tokens like DOGE, SOL, SUI, HBAR, LTC, BTC, TRX, and HYPE had negative cumulative volume deltas on a 24-hour basis.

Speaking of DOGE, the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) of the token’s price is about to cross below the 200-day SMA, confirming the so-called “death cross.” This pattern indicates that short-term price momentum is underperforming long-term momentum, with the potential to evolve into a major bearish trend.

DOGE’s Death Cross

These SMA crossovers are widely followed by trend traders, meaning the confirmation of the death cross could bring more selling pressure to the market. That said, long-term SMA crossovers are lagging indicators, reflecting the sell-off that has already occurred and have a mixed record of predicting price movements in the BTC and ETH markets. Note that DOGE has already dropped 65% since peaking at over 48 cents in December.

BTC Dominance

Bitcoin’s dominance rate, or the cryptocurrency’s share in total market capitalization, has increased to 62.5%, the highest since March 2021, according to data source TradingView. Notably, this metric has increased from 55% to over 62% since the total crypto market capitalization peaked above $3.6 trillion in December. This signifies a continued preference for BTC, particularly during broader market downturns.