Crypto Market Today: Risk-Off Sentiment Dominates Ahead of U.S. PCE Release

The crypto market is a sea of red, with the CoinDesk 20 Index down 5% in 24 hours and all members lower.

Most major tokens continue to see capital outflows from futures market and persistent bias for protection against declines in the form of put options tied to bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) on Deribit.

Friday’s U.S. core PCE, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, will be closely watched for signs of a tariff-led resurgence in price pressures in the economy. A hotter-than-expected print could add to volatility in financial markets.

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

• Plasma, a new blockchain purpose-built for stablecoins, launched its mainnet beta and native token XPL on Thursday, debuting with a fully diluted valuation that’s now above $12 billion.
• The layer-1 network, backed by Bitfinex, Bybit, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, entered the market with over $2 billion worth of XPL tokens in circulation.
• Built for high-speed, low-fee stablecoin operations, Plasma aims to serve as the back end for a new class of DeFi applications. At launch, liquidity was already deployed across major platforms including Aave, Ethereum, Euler and Fluid.
• These include Plasma One, which is billed as a “stablecoin-native neobank.”
• Some tokens sold to U.S. investors are locked until mid-2026 due to regulatory restrictions, which may lower the effective float in early trading.

Derivatives Positioning

By Omkar Godbole

• Most major tokens, including BTC and ETH continued to experience capital outflows from futures market, leading to a decline in the notional open interest (OI).
• That’s only to be expected as the market soon shakes out overleveraged bets.
• Notably, the BTC and ETH OI have continued to decline in the past couple of hours, raising questions about the sustainability of the minor price recovery.
• Smaller coins like KAS and KCS have seen a moderate increase in OI in the past 24 hours.
• Volume in crypto perpetuals listed on Aster DEX has surged to over $46 billion in the past 24 hours, significantly higher than Hyperliquid’s $17 billion.
• On the CME, BTC futures OI has almost reversed the early September spike from 134K BTC to 149K BTC, representing renewed capital outflows. On the other hand, OI in options continues to rise, approaching the November 2024 high of 56.19K BTC.
• Positioning in ETH futures and options remains elevated on Deribit, with an annualized three-month basis at 7%, a significantly lower yield than SOL’s 15%.
• BTC, ETH options risk reversals continue to lean bearish out to the December expiry, data from Deribit show. In SOL and XRP’s case, pricing is biased bullish for the year-end expiry