LUNC, APE Rally Hard While Bitcoin’s $79K Level Holds The Key To A Market Shift

• Altcoins topped gains, with LUNC up 17% and APE over 25%, while major tokens remained down.
• ApeCoin's climb was most likely caused by a short squeeze following a period of high volatility and large weekly gains.
• Bitcoin's $79,000 mark is critical, and a breakout might flip attitude from cautious to positive.

Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) and ApeCoin (APE) were the top performers on Tuesday, surpassing Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), BNB (BNB), and Ripple's XRP (XRP).

LUNC’s price rallied about 17% in the last 24 hours to trade near $0.000069 with strong intraday momentum and rising volumes. APE’s price spiked more than 25% to $0.18 on a late-session breakout. 

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around LUNC and APE both remained in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone, while chatter stayed in the ‘extremely high’ levels over the past day. 

This compares with muted or negative moves in major assets. Bitcoin’s price was down more than 1% on the day, trading at $76,800, while Ethereum’s price was trading at $2,280, a modest decline as XRP and Binance remained mostly flat to lower. 

CZ Reveals Why Binance Held LUNA Despite Crash

According to reports, Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao reportedly detailed in his book ‘Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance’ how the exchange decided not to liquidate its LUNA assets in the wake of the 2022 Terra collapse, despite the fact that the value had soared from $3 million to almost $1.6 billion.

Zhao explained that the decision was influenced by a number of factors, including the risk that a major sell-off could worsen the death spiral and the lack of liquidity required to exit amid falling order books. He also mentioned reputational issues, avoiding the impression of leading retail investors, and a sense of responsibility as a key ecosystem participant. 

Some Stocktwits users pointed it out as bullish sentiment. 

Why Is ApeCoin Rallying?

Many Stocktwits users also pointed out that ApeCoin’s recent rally was a “short squeeze.”   

Previously, ApeCoin swung drastically over 48 hours, rising 88% in a single day before falling roughly 12% on Sunday, following a larger 50% weekly rise. 

Bitcoin Approaches Key Cost-Basis Confluence

Bitcoin’s structure in the $79,000 zone remains firmly in market focus, identified by on-chain analytics firm Checkonchain as a crucial inflection point. The analyst called this level the intersection of the True Market Mean and the cost foundation of a Short-Term Holder (STH).

According to the analyst, a breakout above this range would bring many recent buyers back into profit, turn sentiment from cautious to bullish, and help solidify a shift from sell-the-rip to buy-the-dip behavior.

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