Altcoins soar as dollar slides to four-year low; bitcoin steadies

Altcoins rallied on Wednesday as the U.S. dollar fell to its weakest level in four years, while bitcoin remained range-bound and ether eased slightly.

The Dollar Index (DXY) dropped below a trendline that had held since 2011, despite President Donald Trump attempting to reassure markets, saying the dollar was “doing great” and that he was not “concerned.” The decline underscores the ongoing influence of the greenback on crypto, where most assets are traded against the U.S. currency. The inverse relationship between dollar strength and crypto performance was highlighted during the last bear market, when the dollar rose roughly 22% between November 2021 and October 2022, while bitcoin lost over 70% of its value.

Bitcoin (BTC $83,014.34) traded mostly unchanged after gaining in the previous session, and ether (ETH $2,733.70) gave back some of its recent gains. Gains instead concentrated in altcoins, with Hyperliquid’s HYPE token rising 11% since midnight UTC, and Solana-based liquid staking token Jito (JTO $0.3510) surging 32%—its largest one-day gain since December 2023, according to CoinDesk data.

Derivatives highlight cautious optimism

Leveraged traders continued to take losses, with roughly $230 million in bullish crypto futures liquidated over the past 24 hours. Despite the liquidations, volatility expectations remain low: one-day and 30-day implied volatility for BTC and ETH indicate traders are not pricing in major swings ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision.

Open interest in HYPE futures jumped over 20% in dollar terms, reflecting the token’s price gains, while open interest in BTC, ETH, XRP, and BNB rose 2–4%. Funding rates for most major tokens remain positive, signaling a prevailing long bias, except for ZEC and TRX. On Deribit, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, with heightened activity in BTC $85,000 strike puts suggesting demand for downside protection. Ether traders favored straddles and risk reversals, and block trades in BTC were mixed across call and put spreads.

Altcoins lead the charge

Among top performers, Solana-based memecoin PIPPIN stole the spotlight, climbing 64% in 24 hours. Created by AI innovator Yohei Nakajima, PIPPIN was also the most bought token by “smart money” investors, according to Stalkchain.

Other decentralized exchange tokens also advanced: Jupiter (JUP $0.2040) rose 3.1% since midnight UTC, totaling a 24-hour gain of 10.9%, while Aster (ASTER $0.6114) gained 5.7% to trade near $0.69.

Indexes reflected the broad altcoin strength. The bitcoin-heavy CoinDesk 20 Index rose 2.47% in 24 hours and is up 2.38% year to date. The altcoin-heavy CoinDesk 80 Index outperformed, gaining 3.7% on the day and 7.3% since Jan. 1.

Analysts note that bitcoin’s narrow consolidation has historically favored higher-beta altcoins, as traders rotate capital into more speculative tokens while waiting for bitcoin to make a decisive directional move.