First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Holds $40K

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Bitcoin treaded water around $40,000 during European trading hours, largely unmoved in the last 24 hours, down around 0.6%. "It's clear the market is steadily recovering from the initial shocks of the ETF introduction and GBTC unwind. Notably, call-put skew has been increasing from an earlier low, indicating a shift in market sentiment," Luuk Strijers, CCO at Deribit, said. Bitcoin options worth $3.75 billion expire on Deribit on Friday at 08:00 UTC. Strijers said traders have been rolling their positions forward from January expiry contracts to February expiry contracts. Data show the max pain point (the level at which options buyers stand to lose the most on expiry) for bitcoin's January expiry options is $41,000. The theory is that options sellers, usually institutions with ample capital supply, try to move the underlying spot market closer to the max pain point ahead of the expiry to inflict maximum damage on buyers.

Swiss cryptocurrency banking group Sygnum closed a $40 million funding round, which gave it a $900 million valuation in a further sign of crypto winter 's thawing. The collapse of U.S. crypto-friendly banking firms Silvergate and Signature in early 2023 was one of many touchpoints of the 2022-23 bear market. “Closing a successful funding round in this macro environment with such strong partners is exciting, and we are thankful for our investors’ trust in us,” Mathias Imbach, Sygnum’s co-founder and CEO, said. Sygnum plans to use the proceeds to expand its offerings into European and Asian news markets.

Tesla's bitcoin holdings remained unchanged in Q4 2023, according to the company's latest earnings report. The report didn't mention bitcoin, suggesting the company did not buy or sell any BTC in the last three months of the year. Tesla holds over 9,720 BTC, according to data tracked by Bitcoin Treasuries, and is the third-largest public holder of the asset behind MicroStrategy and mining firm Marathon. The firm acquired 43,000 BTC in 2021 for $1.5 billion in February 2021 but had sold 75% of these by Q2 2022. Tesla's remaining holdings are worth $387 million at current prices.

Chart of The Day

• The chart shows that the ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio has reversed nearly half of the early January rally.
• The pullback is consistent with the bearish positioning in the ether options market.
• Some analysts are confident ether will be a standout performer in the coming months.
• Source: Trading View

- Omkar Godbole

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