Cryptocurrency Derivatives Series: Bitcoin Price Stabilizes And Surges – Take A Look At CME BTCH20 Expiry

Bitcoin price has surged 9% yesterday, BTCUSD (at Coinbase) has jumped by $529.19 to trade it at $6,428.78 levels. The pair has constantly been spiking from the lows of $3,858 levels to the recent highs of $6,990 levels.

Technically, bearish streaks have taken halt, the current price takes-off well above 7-DMAs on hammer pattern (at $5,037.61) as both leading & lagging oscillators are also in line with the prevailing uptrend.

On a broader perspective, shooting star patterns ($9,600 levels) plummet prices below EMAs, prior to which the bulls bounce back with the engulfing & hammer, major trend jumps back above 21-EMAs.

On Monday, the current round of CME XBT BTCH20 long term contracts (September 2019 to March 20) settle. The nature of futures contracts means they need to be settled on a predefined date, based on a contract. 

All contracts will have to be traded, or settled, before this date. There is generally a fall in the trading volume of futures around expiration, which coincides with a rise in volatility and a potential short/long squeeze. 

The price of BTC fell heavily on Sunday 29th March, in the 24 hours before CME contracts settled.

On the other hand, having total reported death cases exceeds across the globe with US, Italy and Spain surpassed Chinese numbers due to the deadly contagious coronavirus, almost all markets have halted with a trauma.

As the outbreak widens, the most severe impact on oil demand will be through aggressive travel curtailments. Efforts across the globe to contain the virus have already forced airlines to cancel flights, public gatherings to be suspended, and business conferences to be postponed. Passenger traffic has also declined remarkably as a standard component of the public health emergency includes work-from-home arrangements.

Contemplating all these scenarios, Bitcoin was incepted (during last financial crisis in 2008) and meant exclusively for the circumstances during such ‘financial crunch’, and so far it’s been functioning quite well as desired. Hence, hopefully, this seems to be the conducive time for the pioneer cryptocurrency (BTC) to hold further resistance to the losing streaks and spike off in days to come when the dust of pandemic situation settles.