Bitcoin’s price is trending up while August has been a hot month for the cryptocurrency in decentralized finance.
Bitcoin is on the uptrend, going as high as $11,891 with buyers outnumbering sellers in the market Thursday. ”This is similar to what we saw on Sunday, Aug. 9 – a quick move from $11,500 to $12,000 and then back to $11,300,” said John Willock, CEO of crypto asset manager Tritum. “Maybe we’ve got $13,500 in the next phase up in the coming days,” he added.
David Lifchitz, chief investment officer for quant trading firm ExoAlpha, expects a bitcoin price bull run to proceed should it overcome a nearby hurdle. “All in all, $12,500 is the key level to watch for a sustainable breakout on strong volume,” he said. ”Anything different will be a fake, as it can be seen many times in a historical chart of BTC/USD.”
In the bitcoin options market, open interest (the number of outstanding contracts) is starting to level off after passing the $2 billion mark for the first time since July.
Juicy returns in the DeFi market are making traders lose interest in options, according to Viashl Shah, founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5. “Every derivatives trader that was looking for incremental yield and levered returns has been besotted by the magnitude of moves in DeFi,” Shah told CoinDesk. “So, naturally, cost of capital dictates at least some attention that way.”
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday, trading around $415 and climbing 4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
At the start of the year, the number of bitcoin locked in decentralized finance, or DeFi, stood at 1,453 BTC. That amount is now up to 48,922 BTC as of Thursday. In August alone, bitcoin in DeFi has more than doubled from 20,890 BTC at the first of the month. Decentralized finance is giving investors new avenues to generate income, or “yield,” and, as a result, bitcoin owners have over $570 million worth of BTC at current prices locked in the DeFi ecosystem.
Michael Gord, co-founder of trading firm Global Digital Assets, says many traders are taking gains and buying more bitcoin given the potential ephemeral nature of DeFi. “I’d assume that DeFi profits are being put back into BTC as the safe asset,” he told CoinDesk. “DeFi long term will revolutionize finance, but this short-term bubble is bound to pop eventually, in my opinion.”