Bitcoin gains $ 1,500 in less than an hour, erasing downtrend days
Bitcoin (BTC) had an early year-end bloom on December 31, as bullish momentum sent the BTC / USD pair back to hit $ 48,000.
Option expiration disappears
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed that the BTC / USD pair abruptly gained more than $ 1,500 in a single hour on Friday morning.
A refreshing counterpoint to several days of downtrend, the move gave a taste of what could happen in a crypto market where liquidity is scarcer than normal during the holidays.
Futures + option expiry
– IamNomad (@IamNomad) December 31, 2021
The December Bitcoin options expiration event, worth nearly $ 6 billion, could have provided the abrupt relief, traders argued, this traditionally pushing BTC’s price action beforehand.
A poll conducted by the Bitcoin Twitter account in early December showed that most participants expected the BTC / USD pair to be above $ 55,000 upon expiration.
As Cointelegraph reported, a “change” in BTC ownership is expected to see institutions play a bigger role overall starting next month.
Professional trading platform Coinbase Pro saw nearly 10,000 bitcoins go off its books 24 hours before the surge.
Altcoins join the party
With volatility far from absent in Bitcoin, altcoins took the opportunity to follow suit, reversing some of the losses recorded during the week.
Ether (ETH), the largest altcoin by market cap, was trading around $ 3,800 at time of writing, down 7.2% over the past seven days and below the $ 4,000 mark.
The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization were posting gains of between 1.5% and 4% at the time of publication of this analysis.