Markets Today: Bitcoin, Ether Hold Gains as Ethena Hits $11.9B TVL, Pudgy Penguins Race to F1

The global crypto market cap rose 2% in the past 24 hours to $4.03 trillion as major cryptocurrencies posted gains.

Bitcoin (BTC) added 2.3% to $118,527, ether rose 0.7% to $4,293. Solana and XRP each advanced 4.4% while Dogecoin gained 4.7%.

The rallies came alongside heavy short liquidations, with risk sentiment improving after a relatively calm macro session.

Derivatives Positioning

Futures open interest (OI) in major tokens decreased over the past 24 hours, indicating a capital outflow. It’s also suggestive of price losses being driven by the unwinding of long positions rather than outright short sales.XMR’s perpetual futures appear overheated, with annualized funding rates exceeding 200%. The extremely high figure may prompt arbitrageurs to take a simultaneous long position in the spot market and a short position in futures, allowing them to pocket the funding safely.Funding rates for other major tokens remain pinned at around 10%, reflecting a moderately bullish bias.On the CME, open interest in ETH futures rose to 1.70 million from 1.51 million ETH. BTC open interest remained steady near 138K BTC, the lowest since April.On Deribit, BTC options out to August expiry show a slight bias toward put, or protective, options. ETH options showed a bullish bias across all tenors.ETH’s implied volatility (IV) term structure steepened while BTC’s remain unchanged. Flows at OTC desk Paradigm featured a long position in the BTC $115K put expiring on Aug. 13 and demand for $150K calls expiring in September.Volumes were substantial, with $3.3 billion traded at Paradigm.

Token Talk

Ethena surpassed $11.89B in TVL, becoming the sixth DeFi protocol to cross $10B and the second non-staking model after Aave to do so. The sUSDe APY sits at 4.72%, attracting yield-focused investors.The protocol’s scale underscores growing appetite for non-staking DeFi models and could influence future designs. Market reaction has been broadly positive, with industry figures noting the milestone’s significance.USDe maintains a $1 peg with a $10.48B market cap and $371.97M in 24-hour volume.Polymarket will transition UMA’s oracle from OOV2 to MOOV2 after governance approval, restricting market resolution proposals to a whitelist of vetted participants.The change aims to reduce disputes and market manipulation by ensuring proposals are submitted by experienced users, while keeping dispute rights open to all.The initial whitelist includes 37 addresses, with the shift framed as moving from open debates to a more controlled council-style resolution process.Pudgy Penguins secured Formula 1 branding at the Singapore Grand Prix after winning Kraken’s memecoin trading contest. PENGU branding will appear on Williams Racing’s FW47 car.The token gained 55.1% over the past 30 days while dipping 11.8% in 24 hours, partially rebounding with a 1.4% intraday gain.The exposure is expected to boost visibility among mainstream audiences and strengthen Kraken’s push into sports-linked crypto promotions.Read MoreCoinDesk: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Crypto News and Price Data[#item_full_content]