It’s the last Friday of the month, and even of the year, with Wall Street’s CME bitcoin futures expiring.
Bitcoin thus has given us the traditional -10%, down from $52,000 to $47,600 as of writing.
The cryptocurrency is down 16% overall this month, with December ending red following weakness since November 10th when it reached $69,000.
Usually at the end of the month those that want to continue investing in futures contracts, including some stock traded bitcoin ETFs in US, have to sell this month’s contract and buy next month’s.
That creates some pressure on price, but arguably it should cancel itself out presuming they do buy next month’s contract.
It still creates volatility however in the meantime, with bitcoin generally getting a dip during the last week of the month.
December clearly has been no different with other factors potentially also being an explanation for the fall, the futures ritual so being the more easily identifiable one.
