Market Wrapping: Bitcoin Starts in the Tight Range but Gets Dominance as XRP Crumbles

Just $ 1.2 billion worth of bitcoin changed on the eight exchanges tracked by the CoinDesk 20, the lowest level in 10 days.

The relative silence of the holiday season could yield to some downside at the start of the new year, according to technical analyst Katie Stockton, managing partner at Fairlead Strategies.

“Bitcoin spends its earnings in a consolidation phase after confirming that it is always breaking out to new highs with pushing it mid-month higher,” said Stockton. “The previous opposition near $ 19,500 is now initial support. Over-thinking conditions have not had an impact on momentum, ”he said, although that is“ perhaps more likely in January, which seems to be risk-averse as it relates to other asset classes. ”

Traders borrowing to buy bitcoin may also risk prices in the near future, according to analyst Alex Krüger.

“The crypto market has become extremely high since the $ 20K cut, and implied volatility was getting higher as traders reprinted,” Krüger said. “High leverage converts into weaker hands and makes price vulnerable to major corrections. That is why we have been seeing such large two-way price movements since then. This is normal given the dynamics of such a market. In such conditions negative news would have a major impact on the market. ”

A hint of what’s to come – as early as Friday – can also be found in the derivatives market.

“We will witness the biggest end to Deribit history tomorrow [Dec. 25] as 86,000 option contracts will end with a notional value of over $ 2 billion, ”said Luuk Strijers, chief commercial officer at Deribit, the world’s largest bitcoin options exchange. About 35% of all options on the exchange will expire on Friday, leading them to expect some volatility on Christmas Day.

“The greatest pain is at a significantly lower level, possibly indicating volatility to come,” added Strijers.

As Deribit defines it, the highest pain price is the strike price with the most open interest for giving and calls and the price at which the underlying asset (such as bitcoin or ether) would cause financial losses to ‘ r maximum number of option holders at the end of the expiration period .

Thursday also marked the end of December on bitcoin’s future on the CME, with 4,309 contracts changing hands, much lower than the previous day’s 13,829.

Read more: SEC Gives Broker Dealer Suite to Handle Crypto Securities

Certainly, it’s not all quiet, calm or bright for XRP. Its slide continued down Thursday, with the embattled cryptocurrency taking another 16% in the most recent 24 hours. Since Monday, when Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse gave the headline that the Securities and Exchange Commission was going to file a deed claiming XRP was a security, the cryptocurrency lost more than half its value. While it is still the third most valuable crypto, according to CoinDesk 20 data, its market cap is now back down to $ 26.6 billion, roughly where it was at the beginning of November.

On the heels of XRP’s troubles, bitcoin’s share of the total crypto market has increased to nearly 69% from 65% in the past week alone, according to data collected by CoinMarketCap.

Read more: Coinbase, Other Major Exchanges ‘Between Rock and Hard Space’ on Delisting XRP

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was down 2.3% on Friday, trading around $ 596 at 19:00 UTC (2:00 pm ET).

For those tracking decentralized funding, the amount of ether locked up in DeFi connections remains a little shy of 7.3 million (worth $ 4.3 billion), according to DeFi Pulse data site.

Read more: FinCEN’s Proposed Crypto Wallet Rule could hit DeFi

The digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 were mixed, with eight winners and 10 missing on Monday (the remaining two are fixedcoins).

Notable winners at 19:00 UTC (2:00 pm ET):