Bitcoin (BTC) the price has ranged between $ 46,000 and $ 52,000 for 26 days. Despite the large expiration of the year-end nominal options of $ 6.1 billion, the bullish and bearish instruments evenly balanced between $ 44,000 and $ 49,000.
Therefore, it was not a surprise that the price of $ 47,175 at 8:00 am UTC on December 31 brought little change in the price structure. Even the 3% rally to $ 48,500 after the event could not be sustained, indicating that the bears are unwilling to give up their lead.
The bulls could have interpreted the 9,925 BTC leaving Coinbase in 24 hours as a positive trigger, considering there are fewer coins available on exchanges for newcomers. Additionally, the first week of the year has been positive for the past four years, averaging 18.5% gains for Bitcoin holders.
To further support the bulls thesis, the US-listed tech company MicroStrategy added another 1,914 BTC to your balance sheet on December 30. On the downside, regulation continues to put pressure on markets as South Korea Exchanges require users to verify the addresses of their third-party wallets to comply with the guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) travel rules.
Bitcoin had a stellar 2021 anyway
Regardless of the short-term downtrend behind December's 16% price drop, Bitcoin continues to outperform widely both US stocks and gold for the third year in a row. However, that return was not sufficient to prevent each call option instrument of $ 48,000 and higher from losing its value as the December 31 expiration price declined.
At first glance, the $ 4 billion call options vastly outperformed the $ 2.1 billion put, but the 1.9 call / put ratio is misleading because the price drop of 16 % from the close of $ 57,000 in November eliminated the majority. of bullish bets. Therefore, there is no value in the right to buy Bitcoin (call option) at $ 50,000 if it trades below that price.
Bullish and bearish instruments marched evenly for the December 31 Bitcoin options expiration, which was much lower than expected at $ 660 million. However, the bears were unable to take control as 85% of their bets have been placed at $ 47,000 or less. These data partially explain why the December 31 expiration was followed by an attempt by the bulls to regain momentum.
Will the first week of 2022 finally be able to reverse the slightly negative sentiment that has prevailed since the December 3 crash? Unfortunately, based on the Bitcoin options markets, there is no indication that the tide has turned.
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