Bitcoin Rally Fizzles as Token’s Record-Breaking Year Winds Down

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin is rallying in the final days of a record year for the digital asset as investors assess President-elect Donald Trump’s remaining push to capture the cryptocurrency sector.

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The largest token changed hands at $96,200 as of 6 a.m. in London on Friday, paring a nearly 3% retreat from the day before.Smaller rivals including meme crowd favorite Ether and Dogecoin fluctuated in narrow ranges.

Trump is pushing ahead with a promise to create a crypto-friendly environment in the U.S. and has backed the idea of ​​creating a national bitcoin reserve.

Expiration of options

The crypto market is also poised for a significant expiration of options contracts on Bitcoin and Ether on Friday, one of the largest such events in the history of digital assets, according to major broker FalconX.

The estimated value of Bitcoin contracts on Deribit, one of the largest digital asset derivatives exchanges, exceeds $14 billion, while the equivalent figure for Ether is around $3.8 billion.

Sean McNulty, director of trading at liquidity provider Arbelos Markets, cited “independent market” risk amid expiring derivatives positions.

Microstrategic plan

Bitcoin is fluctuating even after MicroStrategy Inc. this week signaled the possibility of expanding its token purchase program.The company has transformed from a software maker to a Bitcoin aggregator and now has more than $40 billion in digital assets.

The native cryptocurrency is flirting with a decline in December, which would be its first monthly decline in four, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Bitcoin hit a record high of $108,316 on December 17 before pulling back.

Investors pulled $1.5 billion from a dozen U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the four trading days through Dec. 24, the biggest such outflow since Trump won the U.S. election on Nov. 5.

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