FTM surges 30%, prompting speculation of whale manipulation

Fantom (FTM) has recorded massive gains over the past day, with its price reaching 22-month highs.

FTM is up by 30.7% in the past 24 hours and is trading at $0.67 at the time of writing. The asset’s market cap surged to $1.87 billion, making it the 59th-largest cryptocurrency. 

Following the bullish momentum, Fantom briefly touched the $0.73 mark — last seen in May 2022 — at around 01:30 UTC on March 4. 

According to data provided by Santiment, FTM’s total open interest (OI) increased by 183% over the past 30 days. Fantom’s total OI recorded a $48 million rally in the past 24 hours alone — rising from $107.5 million to $155.6 million.

Moreover, traders are still betting on a further price hike for FTM as the market weathers extremely greedy conditions. Per Santiment, FTM’s Binance funding rate is currently hovering around 0.05%, showing that long-position holders are slightly dominating short-position traders. 

On the other hand, Fantom’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) has been consistently rising since Feb. 29. According to the market intelligence platform, the FTM RSI is sitting at the 85 mark at the reporting time.

The heightened RSI shows that Fantom is walking in the high volatility zone and a price cooldown would be expected. The RSI indicator also increases due to high whale activity.

Notably, over 63% of FTM’s circulating supply is currently locked in four whale addresses. In addition, the number of whales holding between 1 million and 10 million FTM tokens increased by 0.8% over the past 24 hours. According to Santiment data, these whales are currently holding 10.24% of FTM’s circulating supply.