The crypto market is green again going into the weekend.

Bitcoin rose to $51,500 on Friday in the Asia trading session during the winter festival season with thin liquidity.

While sentiments are turning, Bitcoin hasn’t got out of its range yet and is still down 25.6% from its all-time high of $69,000.

Ether meanwhile went past $4,150 and is still keeping above $4,100. But cryptos that are leading the greens involve SAND (24%), AR (22%), and LUNA (17%). Even DeFi coins like SUSHI and AAVE are seeing a spike in their value.

The total market cap has now jumped back above $2.5 trillion.

The crypto fear and greed index is also slowly recovering in tandem with prices. At a reading of 41, the sentiments have recovered into just fear territory, while just last week, there was ‘extreme fear’ in the market at a reading of 23.

This could also be in open interest for Bitcoin futures which have reached $20 bln yet again, from under $16.5 bln at the end of the first week of December. However, we still have a way to go with the all-time high sitting at $28 bln from last month.

All this while, the funding rate is still low, with the highest being 0.0125% on OKEx for USDT margined Bitcoin contracts while lowest at -0.0113% on OKEx again but for token margined contracts.

For Ether, OI has climbed to $11.36 bln, up from $9.50 bln just over a week back and fast climbing towards $14.5 bln ATH in early November.

The crypto market’s latest gains came amidst the wider positive sentiment in financial markets. Risky sentiments have improved in global markets, as seen in Thursday's record-high close for the S&P 500.

While the receding tide of central bank liquidity is expected to put a dent in demand for risky assets, it is yet to be seen in the market as prices go up.

“Even in an environment where the Fed raises interest rates, investors and businesses will be hungry for the high-yield opportunities offered through digital assets. So expect to see institutional adoption of digital assets balloon — directly, through ETFs, or custom yield-generating products,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, in an interview with CNBC.

Most Asia share markets edged higher on Friday while the greenback headed for its worst week since September as risk assets record gains amidst ebbing concerns over the severity of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.

Meanwhile, the US stock market and Treasury markets will be closed on Friday for a holiday, but the Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures gained 0.8% and 0.66%, respectively, in Asian hours.

“Cautious optimism that Omicron is less severe than Delta is supporting risk assets,” said FX analysts at CBA in a note.

AnTy

AnTy has been involved in the crypto space full-time for over two years now. Before her blockchain beginnings, she worked with the NGO, Doctor Without Borders as a fundraiser and since then exploring, reading, and creating for different industry segments.