Key Upcoming Event Fuels Fresh Anxiety on Bitcoin’s Future

Bitcoin has managed to hold above $87,000 despite the recent Japan rate hike, but it faces another major hurdle that threatens its current hold. A massive liquidation event is due for today December 16th, which is likely to cause unprecedented volatility.

Information shared reveals that over $7 trillion in US stock futures, options, and ETFs will expire. An event market experts refer to as triple witching expiration. This is an expiration around the end of stock market trading sessions on the third Friday of every March, June, September, and December. 

As today is the third Friday of December, an analyst says this is the biggest triple witching expiration ever. With such a large volume of trades about to expire, which also makes the impact potentially huge.

Bitcoin at Risk of Significant Dump

Trade expirations have traditionally been associated with market volatility, especially in crypto. However, the effect is not always consistent because in some cases, the market may absorb the shock without getting shaken too much. Triple witching expirations are a bit different in their impact, especially on Bitcoin.

According to an analyst, this event has led to a Bitcoin dump every single time it happened this year. Which raises fears about Bitcoin’s price. The analyst had in a previous X post implied that the expirations can also result in a rally as volatility hits the market, but the risk of a dump is probably much higher due to Bitcoin’s prevailing weakness.

The coin has recently shown such weakness that is reflected in its number of active wallet addresses seeing a significant decline. Bitcoin has also failed to break out of a range it has been in for some time, recently breaking below $90,000 which opened the door to a dip to lower prices. 

Experts say the weakness is as a result of a shift in investor approach. Nonetheless, a hit due to the expiry may have a significant negative effect that may not only affect Bitcoin but also the rest of the crypto market because of the weakness.

Bitcoin is in Good Shape for Now

While the market awaits the massive pending expiry, Bitcoin is doing well at the moment. Having held $87,000 for the last 24 hours, it has reclaimed $88,000, a key support level that it lost this week, and analysts say the reclaim can trigger the next uptrend.

With this expectation, it will be an interesting weekend to find out if the uptrend or triple witching expiry wins. 

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