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Crypto Markets Today: BTC Holds at $114.5K, HBAR Soars on ETF News
Crypto markets paused after Monday’s surge, with bitcoin steady near $114,500 and ether slipping slightly. Hedera’s HBAR led altcoin gains.
Oct 28, 2025, 12:00 p.m.
What to know:
- BTC hovered around $114,500 as futures open interest climbed to $27.6 billion and funding rates stayed positive, signaling gradual bullish momentum.
- Hedera’s HBAR token jumped 17% after Canary Capital said its HBAR ETF will debut on NYSE Arca. Daily volume surged 344% to $871 million.
- Despite HBAR’s advance, many tokens including ZEC and DASH surrendered earlier gains, with the “altcoin season” index falling to 28/100 from 78/100 in September.
The crypto market consolidated on Tuesday following strong gains on Monday, with bitcoin trading at $114,500 while ether slipped back to $4,120.
The market is anticipating Wednesday's Federal Reserve interest-rate decision while piggybacking off the optimism of an "imminent" U.S. trade deal with China, an event that caused upside across equities.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
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The altcoin market remains volatile; with several tokens giving back much of Monday's gains while the likes of HBAR and TAO posted double-digit moves to the upside.
Derivatives Positioning
By Jacob Joseph
- The BTC futures market is showing a sustained recovery, with open interest (OI) slowly increasing to $27.62 billion as traders continue to gradually re-engage.
- Funding rates have solidified their flip to predominantly positive, with major exchanges like Binance posting a high annualized rate of 7.99%.
- The combination of slowly grinding OI and positive funding rates suggests a continuation of slight positive signs and a bullish bias for the market.
- The bitcoin options market is displaying a measured bullish outlook, supported by the upward-sloping implied volatility term structure — a position known as contango — which anticipates higher volatility in the future.
- Sentiment is turning even more positive as the 25-delta skew is slowly picking up, with the one-week skew at 4%. That means traders are paying a premium for call options. This measured bullish conviction is strongly reinforced by the 24-hour put-call volume, which is heavily in favor of calls (64%).
- Coinglass data shows $270 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 71-29 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($85 million), BTC ($54 million) and others ($36 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $116,000 as a core liquidation level to monitor in case of a price rise.
Token Talk
By Oliver Knight
- The altcoin market remained in a state of flux on Tuesday with several tokens, including zcash and dash , failing to cling on to recent gains.
- One token stands out: . That's jumped 17% in the past 24 hours after an announcement that Canary Capital's HBAR ETF will be listed on the NYSE Arca when markets open on Tuesday.
- Daily trading volume for HBAR spiked to $871 million, representing a 344% rise on the previous 24 hour period.
- The token trades at 20.9 cents, still below its January peak of 37.5 cents but significantly above June's low of 13.35 cents.
- There was also a notable gain for TRUMP, the memecoin issued by the U.S. president at the start of the year. The 11% surge occurred after Trump revealed a trade deal with China was "imminent."
- The altcoin sector in general continues to underperform bitcoin, with CoinMarketCap's "altcoin season" indicator printing 28/100 after slumping from 78/100 in September.
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What to know:
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