As 2023 comes to an end, cryptocurrency traders are turning more and more towards alternative cryptocurrencies.
Currently, 38% of the $30.45 billion market-wide notional futures open interest is locked in as a dollar value in the quantity of active futures contracts linked to bitcoin. That’s the lowest that Coinalyze has tracked in at least two years.
“Seems ‘all’ the money is going into alts now,” Coinalyze stated in an attempt to explain why open interest in futures for Bitcoin has declined.
The data indicate a return to risk-taking in the cryptocurrency market, which is usually seen following a significant bitcoin uptrend.
The primary cause of the over 60% increase in Bitcoin’s market value to $43,100 since October 1st was the decline in Treasury yields and the anticipation that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would soon approve one or more spot BTC ETFs. As of this writing, ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was trading 88% higher and BTC was up 161% year to date.
As of late October, BTC’s share of futures open interest dropped from nearly 50% to 48%. In contrast, the percentage of altcoins has increased from 32% to 41%, with ETH’s dominance remaining stable at approximately 21%.