In the final days of a record year for digital assets, Bitcoin’s rally is bursting as investors assess the remaining momentum of President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of the cryptocurrency sector.
The largest coin was changing hands at $96,200 as of 6 a.m. in London on Friday, with some coins trading nearly 3% lower than the previous day’s retreat. Smaller rivals, including Ether and Dogecoin, a favorite of the meme crowd, also oscillated in a narrow range.
Trump is moving forward with his promise to create a crypto-friendly environment in the U.S. and is backing the idea of a national Bitcoin reserve. Traders are taking some profits and are waiting to see if the controversial reserve is feasible.
Option Expiration
Crypto markets also prepared for a large number of bitcoin and ether options contracts to expire on Friday — one of the largest such events in the digital asset’s history, according to prime broker FalconX.
The notional value of bitcoin contracts on Deribit, one of the largest digital asset derivatives exchanges, exceeds $14 billion, while the equivalent figure for ether is around $3.8 billion.
Sean McNulty, trading director at liquidity provider Arbelos Markets, noted the risk of “market volatility” when derivatives positions expire.
Micro-strategy planning
Bitcoin was wobbling even after MicroStrategy Inc. this week signaled the possibility of expanding its token-buying program. The company has transformed itself from a software maker to a bitcoin accumulator that now owns more than $40 billion in digital assets.
The original cryptocurrency fell in December, which would be its first monthly decline since April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $108,316 on Dec. 17 before recovering.
Investors withdrew a net $1.5 billion from a dozen U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the four trading days to Dec. 24, the heaviest outflows since Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
