Bitcoin climbed above $81,400 as a recovery in Asian semiconductor stocks lifted sentiment across the crypto market, while Pepe (PEPE) surged 9.4% to lead gains among major digital assets.

Bitcoin (BTC) added around 0.8% from midnight UTC, trading near $81,400 on Monday after previously slipping below $80,000. Ether (ETH) rose 0.9%, while the CoinDesk Memecoin Index gained 1.3%, signaling a broader improvement in cryptocurrency prices.

Asian Chip Stocks Drive AI Recovery

Technology shares across Asia led a rebound in artificial intelligence-related stocks. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 6.6%, with SK Hynix jumping approximately 11% after reporting a sevenfold increase in profit.

Nasdaq-100 futures also moved 0.5% higher, reflecting renewed investor interest in technology stocks.

Federal Reserve Decision Takes Center Stage

Investors were focused on the Federal Reserve’s upcoming interest-rate announcement, scheduled for 18:00 UTC. CME’s FedWatch tool indicated a roughly 92% probability that the central bank would keep rates unchanged.

Traders were also watching Fed Chair Kevin Wash’s press conference for clues about the possibility of future rate hikes.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $176 million in inflows on Tuesday, marking a second consecutive day of positive flows. Alphabet (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) were scheduled to release their earnings after the U.S. market closed.

Crypto Futures Activity Picks Up

Trading volume across cryptocurrency futures increased 7.5% in 24 hours to $163.2 billion. Open interest, however, rose just 1.3%, suggesting that market activity increased without a similar expansion in outstanding positions.

Liquidations climbed 38% to $183.6 million. Taker volume remained balanced, with buy orders accounting for 50.7% and sell orders making up 49.3%.

Bitcoin advanced 2.3% as its open interest slipped 0.1%, indicating that the rally was not accompanied by an increase in leveraged exposure. Ether gained 2.7%, while its open interest rose 1.7%.

Funding rates remained slightly positive at 0.0090% for Bitcoin and 0.0079% for Ether, both near the 0.01% reference level. These readings suggest that bullish positioning was not excessively crowded.

Bitcoin liquidations reached $56.4 million, while Ether recorded $46 million. Combined, the two assets accounted for more than half of total market liquidations.

Zcash sees a notable increase in open interest

Zcash (ZEC) recorded a 14% increase in open interest alongside a 6.3% price gain, suggesting fresh capital entered the market. Its funding rate stood at 0.0076%, indicating that positioning had not become excessively overheated.

ZEC liquidations totaled $8.6 million, the highest figure among altcoins.

Gold and crude oil derivatives show different trends

Open interest in XAU futures fell 10% even as gold prices gained 1.4%, pointing to reduced participation in the market. In contrast, open interest in XAUT, Tether’s tokenized gold asset, increased 11.6% alongside a 1.3% price rise.

Crude oil futures showed signs of bearish positioning. Open interest in the front-month CL contract rose 3.3% as prices declined 0.7%, while trading volume surged 26%. Its funding rate dropped to -0.0135%, the most negative among the largest contracts, suggesting traders were increasingly favoring short positions.

Semiconductor gains outpace new market exposure

SOXL, a leveraged ETF designed to deliver three times the daily performance of semiconductor stocks, jumped 12%, while its open interest increased only 2%.

SK Hynix gained 8.7% as open interest rose 3.9%. SanDisk climbed 7.1%, despite a 1.8% decline in open interest.

These figures suggest that the rally in chip stocks was not matched by a comparable buildup in new positions. Funding rates were slightly negative for SOXL and SK Hynix and close to zero for SanDisk, offering little evidence of crowded bullish trades.

Buying pressure remains positive across most tokens

Open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) was positive for most cryptocurrencies over the previous 24 hours, indicating that market buy orders generally exceeded sell orders relative to open interest.

Stellar (XLM) posted the strongest positive CVD reading, while XAUT recorded the weakest result on the negative side.

Bitcoin options indicate reduced demand for hedges

Bitcoin’s one-week put-call skew on Deribit dropped below 1%, down from nearly 10% a week earlier. The decline points to weaker demand for put options used to protect against potential price drops.

Longer-term options still showed a preference for puts across the one-, three- and six-month periods, suggesting that investors remain cautious about the broader outlook.

The most-traded Bitcoin options contract over the previous 24 hours was a $65,000 put expiring October 30. For Ether, a $3,400 call expiring October 29 was the most active contract.

PEPE Leads Memecoin Gains

Pepe (PEPE) rose 9.4% on Wednesday, making it the top performer in the CoinDesk 100 Index. The advance followed a report from Arkham Intelligence claiming that wallets it links to Tron founder Justin Sun hold approximately $51 million worth of PEPE, potentially making him the token’s largest holder outside exchanges.

Other memecoins also moved higher. Floki (FLOKI) gained 3.4%, while Dogecoin (DOGE) advanced 1.9%.

AI-focused tokens continued to lag behind technology stocks for a second day. Venice (VVV), associated with a privacy-focused AI platform, fell 8.2%. Grass (GRASS) lost 3.3%, while Kite (KITE) declined 2.4%.

Decentralized finance tokens also underperformed the wider market. CoinDesk’s DeFi Index (DFX) advanced just 0.6%, compared with a 0.9% increase in the CoinDesk 80, leaving it as the weakest-performing CoinDesk index.

Meanwhile, CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index rose to 60 out of 100 from 57 on Tuesday, pointing to a modest improvement in altcoin performance relative to Bitcoin.