QCP: Christmas Week Liquidity Contraction, Cryptocurrency Market Maintains Range-Bound Trading

BlockBeats News, December 23rd, QCP released its daily market observation, stating that as the Christmas holiday approaches, cryptocurrency market liquidity has significantly weakened. Despite the historical high in gold prices, Bitcoin continues to range. Data shows that the open interest of major exchanges' BTC perpetual contracts decreased by about $3 billion overnight, and ETH perpetual contracts dropped by about $2 billion, indicating that the market is actively deleveraging rather than repositioning.

Liquidity contraction has elevated the risk of bidirectional pressure during the holiday period. Historically, Bitcoin usually experiences 5%–7% price fluctuations during the Christmas week, often associated with the concentrated expiration of year-end options.

This Friday will see a large-scale expiration, with around 300,000 BTC options contracts (about $23.7 billion) and 446,000 IBIT options contracts expiring. Over 50% of Deribit's open interest contracts are concentrated on the holiday expiration, with the main strike prices at $100,000 and $85,000, and the largest pain point near $95,000.

Recent data shows a decrease in open interest for $85,000 put options, while the $100,000 call options remain relatively stable, reflecting that the market still holds limited bullish expectations for the "Christmas rally." Meanwhile, the risk reversal indicator shows a slight easing in market sentiment compared to the previous 30 days, but overall still slightly bearish.

Analysis suggests that besides options fund flows, year-end tax-loss selling activities may also amplify short-term volatility in a low liquidity environment. However, based on historical experience, holiday trends tend to mean-revert after liquidity returns in January. In the absence of a clear directional breakthrough, the cryptocurrency market may continue to range in the short term.