By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
Bitcoin the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, continues to trade aimlessly above $90,000, with implied volatility in the meltdown as the year-end approaches.
Volmex’s BVIV, which tracks bitcoin’s option-based 30-day implied volatility, has fallen to 45.10% year-on-year, the lowest since Nov. 10, according to TradingView data. That’s down from a peak of 65% observed on November 21.
Coins like ZEC and AAVE are up over 9% in the last 24 hours, outperforming BTC and Ether . HYPE, TAO and SUI are up over 5%, while KAS and TRX are down over 1%. The CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 indexes are up over 2% each, pointing to some bullishness in the broader market.
Analysts say they expect the choppy price action in BTC to continue.
“Traders should expect high-volatility chop and avoid extrapolating intraday strength,” Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN, said in an email.
“The market is stabilizing, but fundamentals remain fragile. Price action is constructive, yet liquidity is thin and ETF flows are fragmented, indicative of a market searching for direction rather than committing to one,” he said.
This is consistent with the tendency of financial markets to take time to recover from a crash, which undermines investor confidence and removes excessive leverage.
Speaking of leverage, cumulative open interest in BTC and ETH futures and perpetual futures has fallen by 36% and 35% respectively over the past three months. Open interest in solana and have fallen by 53% and 59.5% respectively see a 70% drop.
Clearly, there has been a lot of de-risking, led by memecoins.
In traditional markets, gold has resumed its rally, with the dollar weakening to multi-week lows following the Fed meeting. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- December 12: EstateX (ESX) platform becomes available to everyone. Fractional property shares can be purchased via PROPX.
- December 12: Stripe turns on dollar-settled stablecoin payments for merchants and supports USDC on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and Base, USDP on Ethereum and Solana, and USDG on Ethereum.
- Macro
- December 12: The Federal Reserve begins reserve management purchases of Treasury bills, according to the implementation note for the December 10 FOMC decision.
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- December 12: Arbitrum and Lava Network host a fireside chat on scaling blockchains with RPC APIs.
- Nexus Mutual DAO votes to launch a USDC box in Q1 to generate returns for sophisticated investors by backing real-world insurance policies. Voting ends December 13.
- Unlocks
- December 13: to unlock 2.86% of its circulating supply, worth $11.02 million.
- The token is launched
- December 12: RaveDAO (RAVE) to be listed on Binance, Gate.io, MEXC, Kraken, Bitget, BitMart and others.
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Market movements
- BTC is down 0.36% as of 16 ET Thursday at $92,560.78 (24 hours: +2.34%)
- ETH is unchanged at $3,253.10 (24 hours: +1.27%)
- CoinDesk 20 is unchanged at 2,940.88 (24 hours: +2.26%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 5 bps to 2.84%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0078% (8.5957% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.12% to 98.47
- Gold futures are up 1.25% at $4,367.00
- Silver futures are up 0.12% at $64.67
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 1.37% at 50,836.55
- The Hang Seng closed up 1.75% at 25,976.79
- The FTSE is up 0.24% to 9,726.05
- The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.52% to 5,783.89
- The DJIA closed Thursday up 1.34% at 48,704.01
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.21% at 6,901.00
- The Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.25% at 23,593.86
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.54% at 31,660.73
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.34% at 3,171.63
- The US 10-year Treasury yield rose 2.5 bps to 4.166%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.14% at 6,897.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.49% at 25,588.50
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures rose 0.21% to 48,850.00
Bitcoin statistics
- BTC Dominance: 59.38% (-0.12%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03507 (0.21%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,096 EH/s
- Hash price (spot): $39.46
- Total fees: 2.65 BTC / $240,075
- CME Futures open interest: 123,350 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 21.3 oz.
- BTC vs Gold Market Cap: 6.18%
Technical Analysis
- The chart shows daily price fluctuations a digital token representing ownership of one troy fine ounce of physical gold.
- The token’s price recently broke out of the triangular consolidation, refreshing the broader uptrend.
- Prices now appear to be headed for record highs.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Thursday at $269.02 (-2.21%), +0.55% at $270.49 in premarket
- Circle (CRCL): closed at $88.57 (+0.18%), -0.16% at $88.43
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $29.86 (+1.15%), unchanged in pre-market
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $45.38 (-1.63%), -0.22% at $45.28
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.84 (-0.67%), +0.17% at $11.86
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.75 (+1.16%), unchanged in pre-market
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.40 (+0.4%), -0.11% at $17.38
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $14.82 (+2%), -0.47% at $14.75
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $46.34 (+0.94%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $16.59 (+5.47%)
Crypto Treasury Companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $183.30 (-0.73%), -0.1% at $183.12
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $19.22 (-5.55%)
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $11.53 (-4.08%), +0.95% at $11.64
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.41 (-1.63%), +3.73% at $2.50
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.81 (-1.63%)
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$77.5 million
- Cumulative net flows: $57.84 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.31M
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flows: -$42.3 million
- Cumulative net flows: $13.13 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.33 million
Source: Farside Investors
While you were sleeping
- SEC Gives OK to Tokenize Some Stocks in Move to Blockchain (Bloomberg): The No-Action Letter to Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) enables the firm to provide a tokenization service for a select set of highly liquid securities
- Boring Bitcoins Green Light Moment Incoming? (CoinDesk): BTC continues to bore traders with its directionless price action, but some indicators, such as Bitcoin’s MACD histogram, point to renewed bullishness.
- Stablecoins get support from cross-party UK lawmakers calling for pro-innovation rules (CoinDesk): The group is concerned about the Bank of England’s proposed framework, which limits the use of stablecoins in wholesale markets, bans interest on reserves and capital holdings of 20,000 pounds ($26,750).
- XRP lands on Solana, Ethereum and others, in Boost for Ripple Ecosystem (CoinDesk): Hex Trust’s new wrapped token debuts with deep liquidity and institutional escrow, allowing value to move into DeFi across multiple chains while avoiding reliance on unregulated bridges or informal cross-chain infrastructure.
- Seizure of Venezuelan oil strikes at heart of Maduro’s grip on power (Wall Street Journal): Paralyzed tanker movements and withdrawn buyers are undermining the revenue stream that supports the country’s leadership, intensifying economic stress and reducing its ability to secure significant inflows of hard currency.
