Bitcoin Holds Near $78K as Arbitrum Jumps 30% on Robinhood Chain Boost

Bitcoin slipped slightly toward $78,000 on Tuesday as the market paused after last week’s sharp rally, while Arbitrum’s ARB token surged nearly 30% as activity and revenue on Robinhood Chain accelerated.

BTC was trading around $78,000, down roughly 0.4% since midnight UTC and about 0.7% over the past week. The move comes after a short squeeze pushed Bitcoin from below $63,000 to approximately $81,400 last week.

Despite the consolidation, Bitcoin continues to outperform traditional risk assets. Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 0.5% from midnight UTC, leaving BTC relatively stronger than US technology stocks.

Demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs also remains notable. Nine consecutive sessions of net inflows brought in roughly $3.04 billion, the longest positive streak since April, before $202 million flowed out on Friday. Inflows returned Monday, with about $217 million entering the funds, according to SoSoValue.

Altcoins showed a mixed performance. The Altcoin Season Index fell to 26 out of 100 from 34 on Friday, its weakest level in more than three months.

Derivatives Market Remains Balanced

Crypto futures positioning has stayed relatively neutral for a second consecutive day. The 24-hour taker buy-to-sell volume ratio is balanced, while aggregate open interest remains close to $136 billion. Trading volume, however, declined about 7%, suggesting market participants are largely waiting for a stronger directional signal instead of aggressively adding either long or short exposure.

Arbitrum was the biggest winner among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, with ARB climbing nearly 30%. Futures open interest increased more than 10% alongside the price move, pointing to fresh long positioning as traders attempt to push ARB above resistance near 11 cents. Funding rates remain relatively moderate at around 8% annualized, suggesting the rally has not yet become excessively leveraged.

Monero’s derivatives market continues to expand as well. Open interest in XMR futures reached about 640,000 tokens, the highest level since February 2024. Funding rates have eased to roughly 15% from above 50%, indicating that bullish positioning has become less crowded. However, a negative 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta suggests sellers remain active. XMR has slipped to around $525 after reaching $548 on Monday.

Tron presents the opposite setup. TRX funding rates have fallen to around negative 80%, signaling heavy demand for short positions. The token has declined for a third consecutive day and was trading near 33 cents.

Bitcoin and Ether futures positioning remains relatively subdued, with open interest near multi-week lows.

Volatility has also cooled. The 30-day implied volatility gauges for Bitcoin and Ether, BVIV and EVIV, have both retreated from their mid-August peaks, pointing to calmer market conditions.

Options activity, meanwhile, remains tilted toward bullish bets. On Deribit, the $80,000 Bitcoin call expiring Sept. 25 was the most actively traded contract over the previous 20 hours. For Ether, the $2,500 call led trading activity.

Robinhood Chain Boosts Arbitrum

Arbitrum’s rally stands out across the altcoin market, with the move closely tied to the rapid growth of Robinhood Chain.

Robinhood Chain operates as a dedicated Arbitrum-based network and directs 10% of its net protocol revenue to the broader Arbitrum ecosystem. Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder said Monday that transaction revenue on the chain exceeded $2 million over a 24-hour period, up from approximately $1.22 million the previous day.

If revenue remains at that pace, Arbitrum’s annual share could reach roughly $73 million.

ARK Invest’s Lorenzo Valente highlighted the sharp increase in activity, calculating that Robinhood Chain’s gross daily revenue climbed from $54,676 on Aug. 22 to $1.088 million on Aug. 30. That represents almost a 20-fold increase. Arbitrum’s corresponding share rose from approximately $5,400 to $108,000 during the same period.

Other DeFi tokens also advanced.

Curve DAO’s CRV gained about 14% over 24 hours to roughly 35 cents on trading volume of $119 million, continuing the broader strength across decentralized-exchange and lending tokens.

Uniswap’s UNI added another 8% since midnight to around $5.80 after climbing 12% during the previous 24 hours. The token is now up roughly 34% over seven days, with about $519 million in trading volume.

Smaller DeFi tokens also remained resilient. Aave rose around 1.9% to $126.54, while Morpho gained approximately 2% to $2.55.

The broader market may be taking a breather after Bitcoin’s August surge, but the strength in DeFi and the sharp rise in Robinhood Chain activity suggest parts of the altcoin market are still attracting capital.

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