BTC rests on its record

Inflows into Bitcoin ETFs crossed the $10 billion mark, miners are reaping record profits and options tied to the largest digital currency keep flashing bullishly after a fresh all-time high of $72,700 arrived on Monday afternoon.

We're smack in the middle of a "Forward March" with no signs of slowing. Quite the opposite, as BTC begins Tuesday ticking up, albeit only slightly; as of 7:33 a.m. (EST), BTC was $72,080 (+0.7% in 24 hours).

Amidst the price spike – BTC has gained 28% just since the tail end of February – miner revenue reached record levels. Using a measure that tracks the seven-day moving average of miners’ earnings, The Block estimates that as of Saturday, the average earnings level hit $68.28 million, surpassing the previous all-time high of $67.15 million reached in May of 2021.

Meanwhile, XRP is suddenly stirring as if hooked up to its own supply of oxygen and with the 70-cent mark coming into view. Just in the past day, the seventh-largest crypto jumped nearly 12%. Right around 8 a.m. (EST), XRP looked like it was going to get to $0.70 and stay there. The sub-$0.60 mark was in play only a week ago.

In terms of the biggest gainer in the ranks of CoinGecko's Top 100, take a bow, Toncoin, up 24% in 24 hours. The 14th-largest digital asset has been a jitterbug, high-stepping with each newly revealed tie-in to Telegram Messenger, the instant message platform from which it was spawned. Telegram is said to be gearing up to share advertising revenue with community members via The Open Network, or TON, blockchain. Telegram also is reportedly contemplating an IPO.

Bitcoin may have rediscovered the high life of November of 2021 but can the same be said for Gala Games? Not quite, as the gaming platform's native asset remains 90% off its ATH, above eighty cents, reached on Nov. 26, 2021.

And yet, GALA, 55th-largest token, isn’t exactly snoozing through these historic times.

In just a couple of days, GALA doubled from four cents to eight cents. The launch of a GalaSwap DEX at the end of last month has boosted take-up, CryptoNews said.

As of Tuesday morning, GALA has retraced its path back toward seven cents, shedding 8.5% in 24 hours.

Also right now recoiling is Pyth Network's PYTH, 96th-largest coin, and which yesterday sprang to an ATH of $0.92.

Pyth is described as a first-party oracle network delivering real-time market data to financial dApps across numerous blockchains. As of this morning, PYTH had shed 10% off its high.

Additionally, memecoins are in the red having boiled over. For example, PEPE, a token connected with a community built around a frog meme, hit an ATH of $0.000009793 on Saturday but has since lost 16%, per CoinGecko.

Then there is viral, Solana-run, canine-themed juggernautcoin Dogwifhat (WIF) which reached its record high of $2.46 on Sunday. WIF is down 22% since then. WIF, with a market cap of $1.9 billion, is the 65th-largest coin. PEPE is No. 43.

Trees do grow to the sky – trek deep into the heart of California's Redwood National Park and you’ll find one that's 379-feet high – but gale force winds and wildfires are thing, too.

Crypto investing veterans know forces of volatility can strike like a lightning bolt out of the blue. Activity in the Bitcoin options market can help provide some glimpse of wicked weather patterns brewing. 

Funding rates are paid by leveraged options traders to the counterparts opposite their trades; and the bias toward long or short bets (calls and puts) can paint a bullish or bearish snapshot of the market, as CoinDesk explains.

Earlier today, QCP Capital said (via a Telegram broadcast) that the BTC options market, sometimes called the "volatility market," has produced a bullish signal.

“Volatility remains very elevated for the calls (long bets), particularly in the backend of the curve,” QCP said.

Funding rates reaching such elevated levels is a dynamic that, in and of itself, can trigger a kind of vertigo-induced shakeout, a scenario about which QCP is wary.

Then again, the Singapore-based trading firm expects any dips to be "bought up very quickly."