On Wednesday, bitcoin (BTC) briefly exceeded $100,000 for the fourth time, with trader sentiment switching to greed from fear as the price ranges between $90,000 and the six-figure level.
The largest cryptocurrency may take several attempts to push through $100,000, as previous CoinDesk research showed.
Since touching an all-time high of around $108,000 on Dec. 17, bitcoin has put in a series of lower highs, just as it did during 2024’s seven-month consolidation.
However, the $90,000 price level remains firm. It has provided critical support, and bitcoin has stayed above it since Nov. 18, other than briefly dropping below on Jan. 13. The catalyst for a break in either direction could be President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Monitoring leverage is also a key component to determining the market’s euphoria or greed. This can be observed through futures open interest (OI).
Open interest refers to the total number of outstanding bitcoin futures contracts in the market. Data from Coinglass shows that OI has been at its lowest level since early November, when Donald Trump won the U.S. election.
As the chart shows, open interest has dropped to 621,000 BTC ($61.6 billion) from 700,000 BTC on Dec. 19. That means that recent price action has been less leverage-driven and more spot-driven.
For fair analysis, it is important to compare open interest denominated in bitcoin, as the unit stays the same, rather than using nominal value, which fluctuates depending on the bitcoin price.
