Bitcoin Surpasses $81,000: Privacy Altcoins Lead the Way, Why Was the Rally Limited?
As Bitcoin crossed the $81,309 level, privacy-focused coins led the surge, while derivative data indicated that the rally did not spread across the entire market.
On the morning of September 4, Bitcoin surpassed $81,309, breaking above the level that had limited the rally through the end of August. According to CoinDesk data, the price later traded around $81,060. While Ether rose by 4.52%, XRP by 5.58%, and Solana (SOL) by 3.04%, the strongest part of the movement was seen in privacy-focused coins.
Zcash (ZEC) gained 16.55% in the last 24 hours, Monero (XMR) gained 5.89%, and Dash (DASH) gained 19.24%. In Zcash, open interest increased by 38.72% while the funding rate was minus 0.0118%; the fact that short positions were paying out as the price rose indicated that derivative interest remained strong. However, while there was no clear catalyst behind this rise, $318.6 million in liquidations occurred in the market.
Futures supported the rise in DASH and ZEC
The price increase in Dash was accompanied by an approximately 20% rise in open interest. Zcash presented a similar picture in terms of open interest, the gap between buyer-seller transactions, and futures. This outlook suggested that the rise in these two coins was not limited to spot purchases alone. Although funding rates in Dash were positive, they did not reach levels that would signal overheating.
Open interest in Bitcoin futures rose from 687,000 BTC to 709,000 BTC. In options trading, call contracts in the $85,000-$95,000 range stood out. The $80,000 call option maturing on September 25 became the most traded contract for Bitcoin.
On the other hand, the rally was not supported equally across all assets. The TRX funding rate fell to an annualized minus 59%, indicating that short positions had become overcrowded in the market; no significant increase in open interest was observed in Solana and XRP futures. This picture revealed that the rally was driven by strong derivative interest in some coins but did not spread evenly across the broader market.