Bitcoin recovers toward $78,000 as PONS and ARB extend Robinhood Chain rally

Bitcoin is trading around $77,890 and is recovering toward $78,000. Bitcoin is up 0.76% since midnight UTC. Bitcoin remains down 2.89% over the past week. PONS rose 30.85% over 24 hours. ARB rose 16.77% in its third straight session of gains. ARB remains supported by revenue from its deal with Robinhood Chain. Gold rose 0.97% to around $4,434. Silver rose 0.88% to $65.94. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.2%. S&P 500 futures rose 0.15%. The dollar index fell 0.32% to 99.259. Spot bitcoin ETFs recorded a $9.3 million outflow for a second consecutive day. Tuesday's outflow was $239 million. The altcoin season index stood at 35/100. Lighter's LIT token and ARB were among the altcoins that gained. The 24-hour long-short taker volume ratio in crypto futures shifted to neutral from bearish a day earlier. Cumulative open interest remained near $136 billion. Trading volume fell 7% to $187 billion. ARB open interest rose nearly 10% to 1.58 billion ARB. Coinglass identified that level as a record. The 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta and annualized perpetual funding rates remained positive across the market. LIT traded at a record $2.85. LIT futures open interest continued to decline as its price rose. That divergence suggests the move is driven entirely by spot demand or could unwind quickly because of the apparent absence of a derivatives bid. Bitcoin and ether futures positioning remained light. Their open interest hovered near recently reached multi-week lows. Positive 24-hour open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume deltas showed that more long positions were being executed through market orders than passive limit orders. TRX's annualized perpetual funding rate stood near -23%, compared with -80% earlier in the week. The overall bias for TRX remained bearish. The lower short positioning reduced the risk of a sudden short squeeze. Bitcoin's and ether's 30-day implied volatility indices remained calm. Deribit-listed bitcoin options at $82,000 and $84,000 ranked highest by 24-hour volume. That options flow reflected a bullish bias. Bitcoin's seven-day skew had pulled back from recent highs. Ether's options flow was more mixed.