Crypto markets pushed higher on Friday as the tension that followed the Federal Reserve’s rate hike continued to fade, and leadership shifted toward decentralized finance and Layer-2 tokens. CoinDesk said the move came as the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell back below 5% and Brent crude slipped under $103, easing the inflation scare that had built after the hike.
Bitcoin rose above $78,000 during the European morning, gaining 2.1% since midnight UTC and 1.9% over the past 24 hours. Even so, it remained 5% below the Sept. 4 monthly high of $82,284 after two weeks of range-bound trading.
Nearly the entire CoinDesk 100 moved higher. Ninety-eight of the index’s 100 constituents were up on the day, with attention centered on the DeFi Select Index, which climbed 8.3% since midnight UTC and 16% over 24 hours, making it the fastest-rising segment.
Macro backdrop turns more supportive
The market advance came alongside a softer macro setup. The 10-year Treasury yield moved back under 5%, while Brent crude dropped below $103 after trading as high as $109 earlier in the week. CoinDesk said that pullback helped cool the inflation scare that followed the latest rate increase.
Equity futures also pointed higher. S&P 500 futures rose 0.3% and Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.6%. Gold and silver were up 1.1% and 2.8%, respectively.
CoinDesk described the shift as a rotation back into risk-on trading. Privacy and haven assets had led Thursday’s gains, but by Friday the strongest buying had moved into DeFi and Layer-2 names.
Derivatives show position-building rather than momentum chasing
Aggregate open interest rises to $141.2 billion
Futures market data pointed to a revival in positional trading. Aggregate crypto futures open interest expanded by nearly 5% to $141.2 billion, while daily trading volume fell 3% to $95 billion. Taker buy-sell volume remained balanced, which CoinDesk said suggested capital was entering the market in a more structural way instead of through aggressive momentum chasing.
Bitcoin futures open interest edges higher
Bitcoin futures open interest increased to 680K BTC from 670K BTC since midnight UTC as the price rose. That combination is commonly read as long positions building. At the same time, the increase was small, and total open interest remained well below the 800K BTC peak reached earlier this year, leaving overall positioning relatively light.
Binance ratios still show a bullish tilt
On Binance, the top trader long-short accounts ratio pulled back to 1.52 from nearly 2 on Wednesday, but it stayed in bullish territory. The long-short positions ratio remained elevated at 2.36. CoinDesk said that points to fewer individual large holders leaning long, while those that are still long have increased their bet sizes, signaling strong institutional conviction.
UNI futures open interest approaches a record
Among altcoins, futures open interest tied to Uniswap’s UNI jumped to 86.61 million tokens from 76.89 million tokens a day earlier, putting it close to an all-time high. CoinDesk said the expansion highlighted substantial capital inflows, moving alongside a 30% surge in the token’s spot price. The report linked the stronger appetite for major DeFi altcoins to growing market optimism around friendly, coordinated crypto regulation from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Volume delta favors bulls across most major tokens
The 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta was positive for most major tokens, with GRAM, SHIB, HBAR, and BNB the exceptions. A positive reading means bulls were more aggressive, using market orders to add longs instead of sitting passively with limit orders.
Implied volatility drops to a floor seen since May
With the Clarity Act vote and the interest-rate meetings from the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan now out of the way, bitcoin’s annualized 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, fell to 36%. CoinDesk said that level has acted as a floor since May, pointing to expectations for calmer price action in the near term.
Short-dated BTC and ETH option skew turns bullish
On Deribit, BTC’s one-week put-call skew turned positive, showing calls trading richer than puts and signaling a short-term bullish tilt. One-month and two-month skews still showed a slight put bias. ETH’s one-week skew also turned bullish. Even so, 24-hour options volume rankings still showed mixed sentiment, with both BTC calls and puts appearing among the most active contracts.
DeFi strength was led by UNI
The DeFi Select Index’s gain on Friday was driven largely by Uniswap. UNI rose 13% since midnight UTC and 25% over the past 24 hours. Ethena (ENA) added 9.6%, while liquid-staking token Lido (LDO) gained 6.6%.
The move showed concentrated demand in major DeFi names rather than a uniform rise across the whole sector.
Layer-2 tokens match DeFi’s advance
Layer-2 assets posted similarly strong gains. Starknet (STRK) rose 18% on the day and 21% over 24 hours. Arbitrum (ARB) gained 17% and 25%, respectively. Stacks (STX) added 9.2%, and Optimism (OP) rose 8.9%.
STRK reached its highest level since June 19. ARB, at 20.9 cents, traded at its highest price since January.
Solana rose, but the sharper move was inside its ecosystem
Solana (SOL) gained 4.5% to $106.14. The bigger move came in ecosystem tokens. Solana-based decentralized exchange token Raydium (RAY) rose 16% to $1.71, while liquid-staking token Jito (JTO) lagged with a 1.6% gain.
CoinDesk said that split pointed more to a bet on DEX volumes than to broad buying across the Solana chain.
Thursday’s leaders lose momentum
The tokens that led Thursday’s move slowed on Friday. Zcash (ZEC) traded at $1,490.10, up 1.6% on the day and 7.6% over 24 hours, indicating that most of the advance had already happened on Thursday.
Dash (DASH), another privacy token, was one of only two CoinDesk 100 constituents in the red, falling 0.53%. The other was World Liberty Financial (WLFI), down 0.31%.
Altcoin Season index rebounds from Tuesday’s low
CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season index stood at 44/100, up from Tuesday’s low of 32/100. CoinDesk said that suggested speculation was the dominant theme in Friday’s market.