Bull fodder: bitcoin options expire at record highs

While Ripple and THETA are outperforming Bitcoin, the BTC price is currently recovering. However, the expiry of Bitcoin options could already be setting the stage for the next rally.

The sideways trend of the Bitcoin price continues. After the cryptocurrency bottomed out yesterday at 50,623.90 US dollars, the industry leader was able to end the downward trend, at least for the time being, and Bitcoin Bank firmed up at 52,686.35 US dollars at the time of going to press. In a weekly comparison, Bitcoin suffered losses of 9.1 per cent; in a monthly comparison, the digital store of value is up 8.2 per cent.

However, the temporary dry spell could soon come to an end. As Glassnode co-founders “Jan & Yann” announced on Twitter, bitcoin options worth 6 billion US dollars will expire on the futures exchanges today, 26 March. This will be a record expiration in terms of value and number of options – a total of 100,400 bitcoin options are expected to expire this way. With this new liquidity, the bulls could briefly refuel before going full throttle for the next rally.

This Friday $6 billion in options contracts are set to expire. #Bitcoin price expectations for April are high with lots of investors placing their new bets on $80k. pic.twitter.com/xRipoAaD1F
– Jan & Yann (@Negentropic_) March 24, 2021

Another bullish signal comes from Deutsche Bank. In a report, analyst and Harvard economist Marion Labouré held that “the next two or three years should be a turning point for Bitcoin”. It is quite likely that the cryptocurrency could follow a similar trajectory as its notable investor Tesla to “turn potential into results”.

XRP outperforms bitcoin

Despite the legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the XRP price has remained unfazed by a steady stream of negative news. After the price reached an interim level of 0.468542 US dollars yesterday, the Ripple currency has since risen sharply. At the time of going to press, XRP is at 0.540678 US dollars. This means that the cryptocurrency has grown by 9.3 per cent in the past 24 hours. Among the top 10 coins, the “bank coin” is currently the best performer.

In parallel, more and more investors from the Ripple community are trying to convince the SEC that XRP is not a security. Rather, they say, it should be seen as a “commodity” of the network, similar to Ethereum (ETH). One of them is John Deaton. On Twitter, the lawyer and crypto enthusiast argued why the Ethereum Foundation’s sale of ETH meets the characteristics for securities more than Ripple’s sale of XRP.

What @VitalikButerin is doing in the below video is much more of an “offering” of a security than any specific sale of #XRP that I’m aware of – (although I’m not aware of all #XRP sales).

The transfer of 500k #ETH sold to @novogratz that Vitalik publicly stated SAVED the https://t.co/xyx1aPHVB0
– John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) March 23, 2021

THETA recovers from slump

After the announcement of the postponement of the “Mainnet 3.0” announced by the Theta Network (THETA) until June of this year, the share price dropped by more than 25 per cent to 10.73 US dollars. This seems to have been only a short dip, because THETA made up ground just 24 hours later. At the time of going to press, the price was at 13.07 US dollars.

The developers of Theta explained that the postponement of the market launch was rather a calculated and considered strategy. They want to bring a stronger platform than expected to the market. The new network is to offer TFUEL-Staking and Burning as well as Elite Edge Nodes, among other things.