Crypto Markets Today: XRP, SOL Likely to Move 4% as Payrolls Data Looms

As the crypto market awaits the U.S. nonfarm payrolls release for insights on the how the Federal Reserve might act on interest rates, implied volatility indexes point to moderate price volatility in major cryptocurrencies.

At press time, Volmex's annualized bitcoin BTC$86,621.96 one-day implied volatility index was 43.80. That means a 24-hour expected price swing of 2.29%. The indexes for ether ETH$2,842.80, XRP$1.8678 and SOL SOL$123.93 suggested price swings of 3.7%, 4%, and 4.86%, respectively.

Analysts said that a hotter-than-expected jobs report could weaken the case for rapid Fed rate cuts, sending risk assets lower.

Derivatives Positioning

• Ether's open interest in USDT and dollar-denominated perpetual contracts on major exchanges declined to 1.93 million ETH, a four-week low. This capital outflow raises questions about the sustainability of ETH's nearly 18% gain over the period.
• Except for LINK and BTC, open interest declined across the top 10 tokens. OI in major Solana perpetuals slipped below 11 million SOL, threatening to invalidate the four-week uptrend.
• BTC futures activity on the CME remains subdued, but options are heating up, with open interest rising to 47.23K BTC, the highest since April. The notional OI has risen to $5.21 billion, the most since November. Some traders have been buying cheap out-of-the-money puts, prepping for a potential hotter-than-expected U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report.
• Consistent with trends on offshore exchanges, Ether’s futures open interest on the CME slipped below 2 million ETH, while the three-month annualized premium rose from 5% to 7%.
• On Deribit, BTC puts continue to trade at a premium to calls across all tenors, pointing to downside concerns.
• The seven-day volatility risk premium has retraced nearly to zero, suggesting that the implied volatility for seven days is now roughly equal to the realized volatility. In other words, investors aren't expecting a premium to hedge against future volatility spikes, despite the U.S. jobs data due later today.
• In ETH's case, puts are trading at a premium to calls out to the end-November expiry.
• Block flows on the OTC desk at Paradigm have been mixed, with a BTC $116K call lifted alongside an ether $4K put.

Token Talk

• The memecoin sector had shown signs of fading earlier this year, particularly after the short-lived hype cycles around tokens like TRUMP and MELANIA in January. Those launches briefly captured attention, but failed to sustain momentum, reinforcing the perception that the memecoin trade was exhausted after 2023’s frenzy.
• Both subsequently slumped. TRUMP is now 88% lower and and MELANIA is down 95% despite being touted by the U.S. president and first lady in January.
• However, there's a new kid on the block: MemeCore, a layer-1 blockchain solely focused on transitioning memecoins from speculative assets to something that has utility in decentralized finance (DeFi).
• The platform's native token, M, has risen by 261% in the past week despite a wider market pullback.
• The flurry of activity can also be tied to the MemeX liquidity festival, which offers $5.7 million in rewards to traders. It's worth noting that 85% of the trading volume has taken place on decentralized exchange PancakeSwap, indicating significant retail flows as opposed to on-chain utility.
• While some may argue this is just another flash in the pan, the surge demonstrates just how quickly memecoin sentiment can shift.
• The positive sentiment around MemeCore could find a way of moving back to Solana-based memecoin platform Pump.fun, whose $15.8 million in daily revenue in January has tumbled to between $1.5 million and $2.5 million this week.