Bitcoin climbed to a one-week high on Wednesday as Asian technology stocks recovered, while a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla added to market interest.

BTC touched $83,725.98 before trading around $83,500, up 0.6% since midnight UTC. Better-than-expected corporate earnings helped lift technology shares across Asia, supporting a broader recovery in risk assets.

SpaceX and Super Micro Computer (SMCI) contributed to the positive mood after reporting strong results in the U.S. on Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi rose 3.29%, and Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.44%. Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) had created special committees to consider a possible merger. The deal would combine more than 30,000 bitcoin, worth approximately $2.5 billion, held on their balance sheets.

The recovery extended across the altcoin market. Ether (ETH) gained 0.6% to trade near $2,460, while the CoinDesk 80 (CD80) rose 0.47% and the CoinDesk 5 (CD5) advanced 0.64%. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index outperformed with a 1.2% increase, compared with a 0.84% rise in the CoinDesk 100.

Solana is also preparing to activate its Alpenglow upgrade on Wednesday, aiming to bring transaction finality down to around 150 milliseconds. Meta Platforms (META) is scheduled to release its earnings after the U.S. trading session ends.

Crypto futures activity accelerates

Derivatives trading gained momentum over the previous 24 hours, with crypto futures volume rising 19% to $190 billion. Open interest increased nearly 4% to $145 billion, while liquidations surged 76% to $284 million. The taker long-to-short volume ratio reached approximately 53% to 47%, indicating a slight preference for bullish positions.

Bitcoin and Ether’s latest rallies have not generated a proportionate increase in leveraged exposure. BTC advanced 2.6% over 24 hours, while ETH climbed 3.35%. Their respective futures open interest rose 3% and 2%. Bitcoin’s OI increase broadly tracked its price movement, suggesting limited new capital entering the market. Ether’s slower OI growth could indicate that traders have reduced their exposure in coin terms. Overall, positioning remains relatively subdued compared with previous market peaks.

Privacy coins are attracting fresh speculative interest. Zcash (ZEC) saw open interest jump 24% as its price increased 12%, suggesting that traders are building new positions. Its annualized funding rate reached 10%, but its 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) remained negative, indicating that sellers continued to execute aggressively against buyers during the rally.

Monero (XMR) recorded an 8% increase in open interest, pushing the total above $300 million and close to record levels. Its spot price gained 2%, and its funding rate stood at 4%. Monero’s CVD remained positive, distinguishing it from other major tokens.

Meanwhile, traders betting against BTW are paying a steep premium to maintain their positions. The token’s annualized funding rate fell to minus 77%, raising the possibility of increased volatility if a price rebound forces short sellers to cover. Arbitrum (ARB) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) also showed mildly negative funding rates.

Options traders remain cautious

Volatility expectations for Bitcoin and Ether have cooled. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV, slipped below 40% after briefly moving above 42% on October 15. Ether’s EVIV followed a similar trend, pointing to expectations of relatively stable price action.

Despite the calmer outlook, Bitcoin options traders continue to show a preference for downside protection. Deribit’s one-month put-call skew stood at 8%, reflecting relatively stronger demand for puts than calls. Similar signals appeared in the one-week and three-month readings.

However, calls with strike prices above Bitcoin’s current spot price were among the five most actively traded options. Much of the activity involved synthetic, multi-leg strategies rather than direct bets on further price increases.

Ether options also displayed a downside bias, although the preference for puts was weaker than in Bitcoin’s market. Trading volumes suggested mixed expectations among ETH traders.

Zcash and NEAR lead altcoin moves

Zcash (ZEC) rose 0.9% since midnight UTC to around $1,260, extending its daily gain to approximately 11%. The move followed the announcement of a November activation date for the NU7 upgrade. The update will cut block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, enabling payment confirmations to occur three times faster. It will also allocate 60% of transaction fees to a reserve for distribution over time. Despite the latest gains, ZEC remains down roughly 12% over the past month.

Near Protocol (NEAR) was the strongest performer in the CoinDesk 100, advancing 6% to approximately $5.23. The rise coincided with growing activity on NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap service that directs part of its fees toward token buybacks. A governance proposal to reduce annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over two years also attracted attention.

Ethena (ENA) gained 4.8%, recovering after losing around 22% over the previous month. Its associated synthetic dollar, USDe, has a supply of approximately $4.7 billion, still below the $7.5 billion threshold required to initiate ENA buybacks.

Aerodrome (AERO) led losses in the CoinDesk 100, declining 4.4% and surrendering some of its roughly 6% weekly advance. Morpho (MORPHO) fell 2.7% as decentralized finance assets underperformed. The sector index rose only 0.22%, trailing the CoinDesk 100’s 0.84% gain.

Injective (INJ) dropped 2.1%, reducing its monthly advance to some extent after gaining approximately 18% over the period. Pending U.S. exchange-traded fund applications linked to the token had helped support its recent performance.