The crypto market was steady early Wednesday, with bitcoin (BTC) bouncing back above $112,000.

Smaller coins like IP, MNT and PUMP posted double-digit gains over the past 24 hours, lifting CoinMarketCap's altcoin season index to almost 60% in a signal that the season has probably started.

Story Protocol's IP token rose to over $10 as Heritage Distillery, one of the companies to adopt altcoins as treasury assets, refined strategy to build IP reserves.

Traders are looking to tomorrow's U.S. inflation data to set the tone for the next big move in asset prices.

"With inflation and jobs revisions intersecting, market sentiment in the short term still favors rate-cut optimism," analysts at Bitunix said in an email.

"If data stays within a moderate range, risk assets could see rebound potential. However, if inflation overshoots expectations, dollar strength may pressure BTC and ETH. Key levels to watch: BTC 108,800 support and ETH 4,250 support."

Derivatives Positioning

By Omkar Godbole

• BTC's futures open interest (OI) has remained steady over the past 24 hours as traders sit on the sidelines ahead of tomorrow's U.S. CPI release.
• OI in ETH, SOL and HYPE has increased by over 2%, while XRP, SUI, ADA, and ENA have seen capital outflows.
• Annualized funding rates for top coins except TRX and XLM are hovering at or above 10%, indicating a bullish bias but nothing out of ordinary. In other words, there are no signs of excess leverage buildup or overheating.
• On the CME, notional open interest in BTC options has climbed to a record $5.6 billion, while activity in futures remains subdued.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts out to December expiry continue to trade at a premium to calls, indicating lingering downside concerns.
• Block flows at OTC desk Paradigm featured a long position in the ether $4,000 put expiring on Sept. 26.

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• The crypto market has entered "altcoin season" despite sentiment remaining in bearish territory.
• CoinMarketCap's altcoin season index has ticked up to 59/100, topping August's high of 57 as capital continues to rotate into the more speculative tokens.
• Market intelligence platform Santiment noted that while prices are moving to the upside, sentiment is becoming more negative.
• "Traders have changed their tunes, swinging more and more negative with expectations of bitcoin falling back below $100K, Ethereum back below $3.5K, and altcoins going through a retrace period," Santiment wrote on X.
• Altcoins remain unperturbed with mantle (MNT) and pyth (PYTH) leading the way, gaining 15% and 10%, respectively, over the past 24 hours.
• Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap, continues to languish around $112,500.
• Previous altcoin seasons have occurred when bitcoin consolidates as traders rotated capital to speculative assets without the risk of missing out on a major BTC move.
• Bitcoin has been trading between $107,000 and $113,000 for more than two weeks after failing to break beyond $124,000.

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