Bitcoin (BTC) tanked on Wednesday, hitting multi-month lows near $46,000 as renewed fears of an early rate hike by the Federal Reserve, the recent dour mood in financial markets and Tesla’s decision to suspend bitcoin payments were all blamed for the slide.
But the downward move was likely aggravated by options market makers selling the cryptocurrency in the spot/futures market to hedge their books (offset bullish exposure), according to Fredrick Collins, a seasoned options trader and researcher at Glassnode.
“Market makers were heavily short puts in the range of $52,000 to $50,000, and I estimate were forced to sell nearly 2,900 bitcoin during the crash to offset the short gamma exposure,” Collins told CoinDesk in a Twitter chat. “That likely exacerbated the bearish move.”
The episode shows how the growing trade in cryptocurrency options in recent months has become a force to reckon with for participants in the underlying spot market for bitcoin, with monthly expiries proving to be a catalyst for price volatility. According to data source Skew, the options market has exploded in the past 12 months, with the open interest rising from $50 million to over $10 billion.
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