Decentralized finance (DeFi) was one of the breakout sectors of the cryptocurrency market in 2021 and stands poised to continue to facilitate the mass adoption of cryptocurre in 2022. This comes as institutional and retail investors embrace the emergence of Finance 2.0. One DeFi project that has kicked off the year with a bullish start is Ribbon Finance (RBN), a protocol that utilizes financial engineering to create structured products such as automated options strategies. These are designed to provide users with sustainable yields over time. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since trading at a low of …

Bitcoin's (BTC) price has been ranging between $46,000 and $52,000 for 26 days. Despite the large nominal $6.1 billion year-end options expiry, the bullish and bearish instruments were evenly balanced between $44,000 and $49,000. Therefore, it was no surprise that the $47,175 price at 8:00 am UTC on Dec. 31 brought little change to the price structure. Even the 3% rally to $48,500 following the event failed to sustain itself, signaling that bears are unwilling to cede their upper hand. Bulls might have interpreted the 9,925 BTC leaving Coinbase in 24 hours as a positive trigger, considering fewer coins are …

Bitcoin (BTC) put in an early end-of-year flourish on Dec. 31 as an upward boost saw BTC/USD retake $48,000. Options expiry fades Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD abruptly gaining over $1,500 in a single hour on Friday. A refreshing counterpoint to several days of downtrend, the move gave a taste of what could happen in a crypto market where liquidity is thinner than normal over the holiday period. Futures + option expiry — IamNomad (@IamNomad) December 31, 2021 December's Bitcoin options expiry event, worth almost $6 billion, could have provided the snap relief, traders argued, this …

We‘ve all heard stories of billion-dollar future contracts liquidations being the cause of 25% intraday price crashes in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) but the truth is, the industry has been plagued by 100x leverage instruments since BitMEX launched its perpetual futures contract in May 2016. The derivatives industry goes far beyond these retail-driven instruments, as institutional clients, mutual funds, market makers and professional traders can benefit from using the instrument‘s hedging capabilities. In April 2020, Renaissance Technologies, a $130 billion hedge fund, received the green light to invest in Bitcoin futures markets using instruments listed at the CME. These …

Bitcoin's (BTC) price has been in a down-trend since the $69,000 all-time high on Nov. 10, when the the Labor report showed inflation pushing above 6.2% in the United States. While this news could be beneficial for non-inflationary assets, the VanEck physical Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) denial by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 12 threw some investors off-guard. While the ETF request denial was generally expected, the reasons given by the regulator may be worrisome for some investors. The U.S. SEC cited the inability to avoid market manipulation on the broader Bitcoin market due to unregulated …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to sustain the $47,500 support since the Dec. 4 crash, a movement that wiped out over $840 million in leveraged long futures contracts. The downside move came after the emergence of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus and recent data showing U.S. inflation hitting a 40-year high. While newcomers might have been scared by the 26% price correction over the past month, whales and avid investors like MicroStrategy added to their positions. On Dec. 9, MicroStrategy announced that they had acquired 1,434 Bitcoin, which increased their stake to 122,478 BTC. According to some analysts, the …

The weekend is upon us and fear remains the dominant short-term sentiment in the cryptocurrency market. Earlier today Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped to $47,250 and investors are biting their nails after data from the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) shows inflation reaching a forty-year high at 6.8%. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that a midday push by bulls to reclaim the $50,000 support level was handily defeated and sellers sent the price back below $48,000 which could possibly force another daily lower high for the top-ranked cryptocurrency. With the prospect of a major run up in price …

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls are still licking their wounds from the bloody Dec. 4 correction which saw the price collapse from $57,000 all the way to $42,000. This 26.5% downside move caused $850 million in long BTC futures contracts to be liquidated, but more importantly, it shifted the “Fear and Greed index” to its lowest level since July 21. It is somehow strange to compare both events, as the July 21 sub $30,000 low would have erased the entire gains in 2021. Meanwhile, the $42,000 low from Dec. 4 is still a 44% gain year-to-date. Compare this against the S&P 500 …

Bitcoin (BTC) price is down this week, and naturally, bears will always find some reversal signal whenever the price shows strength, such as the 8% gain on Nov. 28. Of course, technical analysis is not an exact science, so there is a margin for interpretation and most traders look at multiple timeframes to find a narrative that suits their bias. Currently, BTC price is in a descending channel that started on Oct. 31, and if this pattern plays out, Bitcoin could drop to $50,000 in the short term. Cryptocurrency markets crashed on Nov. 26 after concern over a new COVID-19 …

For traders who are undecided on Bitcoin's (BTC) move, the "long condor with call options" yields optimal results with very low risk. This strategy offers protection down to $53,500, which would be a 7% downside move from the current $57,600, and returns a positive outcome up to $67,500. Options markets provide more flexibility to develop custom strategies. Unlike futures, there are two separate instruments available. The call option gives the buyer upside price protection, while the protective put option offers the opposite. This long condor strategy has been set for the Dec. 31 expiry and uses a slightly bullish range. …

Deribit exchange is the absolute leader in the Bitcoin (BTC) options markets and on Nov. 24 the 25% delta skew indicator signaled that sentiment among pro traders was becoming “more bearish overall.” We've seen 25-Delta put skew moved from around 0% to almost 10-15% pending time to expiry since beginning of Nov implying a more bearish overall sentiment. Premiums for downward protection are getting more expensive. In the short term, this expiry has a Max pain of $58k. https://t.co/jhpT1riX3g — Deribit (@DeribitExchange) November 24, 2021 Bitcoin price appears to following a descending channel since Nov. 9, so a “bearish” signal …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action hasn’t been bullish despite the $69,000 all-time high on Nov. 10. Some argue that that descending channel formed 40 days ago is the dominant trend, and $56,000 marks its current resistance. Such bearishness follows scrutiny from United States regulators, after a Nov. 1 report from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets suggested that stablecoin issuers in the U.S. should be subject to “appropriate federal oversight,” similar to banks and savings associations. On Nov. 12, the Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF) request was rejected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. To justify the denial, the regulator …