Digital asset trading company QCP Capital published an analysis today on the recent sluggish cryptocurrency market conditions. They observed that a large number of call options expiring within a month were being sold off, while call options for September to December were being heavily bought. This indicates that the market expects limited price movement in the short term but anticipates a potential surge during the US election period.
Cryptocurrency market performance has remained weak. Bitcoin has been oscillating below $67,300 over the past week, and yesterday it briefly dropped below $63,400, reaching a low of $63,379. Ethereum, on the other hand, showed stronger momentum with news such as the launch of a spot ETF and the conclusion of Consensys’ investigation into Ethereum. On the 17th, it reached $3,653 but has since oscillated back to around $3,500.
Despite several positive news events for Bitcoin, such as MicroStrategy purchasing an additional 12,000 BTC at an average price of $65,883, Dell founder Michael Dell mentioning Bitcoin in a tweet, and Arthur Hayes expressing bullish views on the macroeconomic front, these news events have failed to drive an upward movement in mainstream cryptocurrencies.
QCP Capital provided an explanation for this. They stated that due to the higher breakeven price after the halving, miners are facing significant selling pressure. BTC holdings by miners have reached their lowest level in the past 14 years, with total reserves decreasing by 50,000 coins since the beginning of the year. On the 14th, QCP already mentioned that Bitcoin miners were experiencing a “surrender” after the halving, which limits price increases.
In addition, QCP Capital mentioned that the German government has sold around 3,000 BTC in the past few days, with nearly 47,000 coins yet to be sold. The emergence of this new large supply has also caused market concerns. Crypto trader @DaanCrypto, who has over 370,000 followers, claimed at the time that the recent increase in short positions and the decline in the Bitcoin market may be due to the German government’s sell-off.
Regarding the options market, QCP Capital stated that they observed a large number of call options expiring within a month being sold off, while call options for September to December were heavily bought. This indicates that the market expects limited price movement in the short term but potential significant increases before the end of the year. In other words, the summer market will consolidate, and the market is expected to explode during the US election period.
On the other hand, with the expected launch of an ETH spot ETF, Ethereum’s implied volatility is 18% higher than Bitcoin, indicating stronger bullish sentiment among investors towards ETH.
According to data from options trading platform Deribit, the Bitcoin call option expiring on September 27 with a strike price of $90,000 and the Bitcoin call option expiring on December 27 with a strike price of $75,000 are the top two traded Bitcoin call options, demonstrating high market expectations for Bitcoin to reach new highs in the fourth quarter of this year.