Whenever Bitcoin (BTC) fails to break key resistance levels, traders gain confidence and build up their altcoin positions. Unless Bitcoin crashes, shifting portfolios to higher-risk altcoins will pay off for traders.

Bitcoin/USDT | Source: TradingView

In the past seven days, the total crypto market cap performance has grown to $1.9 trillion.

Comparing the performance of tokens in the top 80 shows misleading results. For example, while the top-performing tokens saw an average gain of 24.9%, the bottom-performing tokens fell an average of 5.9%.

Performance of the top 80 coins | Source: nomics

Terra (LUNA) is up 52% ​​on the week after the nonprofit Terra, powered by the blockchain ecosystem, sold $1 billion in tokens on Feb. 22 Solana Wormhole Cross Chain Bridge.

On Feb. 21, WAVES surged 50.7% after announcing a partnership with Allbridge to make the cross-chain protocol interoperable and supporting the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and non-EVM chains like NEAR Protocol, Solana ( SOL) and Terra (LUNA).

Arweave (AR) is up 28.5 percent in the seven days after Bundlr Network released its high-volume Twitter archiver on Feb. 21.

Finally, QuickSwap, which implements Uniswap (UNI) on the Polygon network, has become the largest decentralized DEX protocol by trading volume, hitting a daily average of $40 million in February. Token UNI is up 14.4% over the past seven days, while MATIC is up 8.5%.

Tether arbitrage reflects low retail demand

The OKX Tether (USDT) Arbitrage is a measure of crypto demand by retail traders in China. It measures the difference between peer-to-peer transactions in China and the US dollar.

Overbought demand tends to pressure the indicator, causing it to have a fair value in excess of 100%, and during bear markets, Tether’s market supply is congested, resulting in a discount of 4% or more.

Peer to Peer Tether (USDT) vs USD/CNY | Source: OKX

Currently, Tether arbitrage is at a neutral 100.3%. However, the indicator is showing signs of steady growth in 2022. The data signals that retail demand is picking up, which is a positive sign as the total crypto market cap is down 19% from January 1st to February 28th.

Futures market lacks ‘excitement’

A perpetual contract, also known as a reverse swap, has an attached rate that is typically calculated every eight hours. Exchanges use this fee to avoid imbalance in exchange rate risk.

A funding rate greater than 0 indicates that buyers (longs) need more leverage. However, the opposite situation occurs when short sellers ask for higher leverage, making the funding rate negative.

Financing rate of the permanent contract on February 28 | Source: coin jar

As described above, the 7-day cumulative refinancing rate is negative in most contracts. This data shows that demand from short sellers is at higher levels, but not significantly. For example, Luna’s rate — 0.65% weekly — equates to 2.8% monthly, a number that shouldn’t worry futures traders too much.

If short sellers want to increase their risk appetite, the rate is above 1% per week, or 4.6% per month.

Perpetual futures contracts are the derivative of choice for retail traders as their prices tend to follow the regular spot market. Therefore, although the crypto performance in 2022 is -19%, the Tether arbitrage is neutral and the funding rate is in positive territory.

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