‘Gut-Wrenching’ Bitcoin Price Decline Driven by Futures Traders: Fundstrat
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The bitcoin price has experienced a “gut-wrenching” decline in 2018, and Wall Street strategy firm Fundstrat believes it has finally identified the reason why.
Writing in a recent note to clients, Fundstrat founder Tom Lee stated that the tends to decline leading into futures expiration dates, suggesting that these products are a major driver of bitcoin’s movements.
“bitcoin sees dramatic price changes around CBOE futures expirations. This was something flagged by Justin Saslaw at Raptor Group. We compiled some of the data and this indeed seems to be true,” Lee wrote, according to . “Overall, bitcoin has fallen 18 percent in the 10 days prior to CBOE contract expiration.”
“A broader observation is there is significant volatility around these expirations,” added Lee, a former managing director at JPMorgan. “And on average, the price recovered by day six [following expiration].”
Previously, Fundstrat had attributed the market downturn to , as traders who took profits in 2017 were forced to sell some of their remaining holdings to cover their capital gains liabilities. However, contrary to their prediction, the bitcoin price did not see a sustained recovery following the income tax return deadline in mid-April.
Now, the firm is joining a growing number of voices who have connected futures to the recent market downturn.
Prior to their launch, many investors and analysts believed that bitcoin futures would in the eyes of institutional investors. Instead, institutions have remained on the sidelines, and an increasing number of researchers have said that these products have — to date — weighed heavily on the market.
As CCN , a recent research report published by the US Federal Reserve suggested that the launch of bitcoin futures triggered the start of the present bear market, largely because it gave bears their first real opportunity (on a regulated US exchange, anyway) to short the bitcoin price.
However, others allege that the decline has been a natural correction in response to suspicious market activity during last year’s bull run. Recently, researchers at the University of Texas released a suggesting that Tether’s dollar-pegged USDT token may have been used to artificially inflate the bitcoin price on several exchanges.
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In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the 1940s Christmas classic, George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) is the guiding force of a small-town bank, who ends up sacrificing his own dreams for the betterment of his community.
Ultimately, facing financial ruin, he begins to question what it was all for. That is when his friends appear, one by one, with a flurry of donations, reminding him of how he touched each and every one of their lives, and Bailey realizes he is a rich man after all.
bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos recently found himself at the center of a similar outpouring of gratitude. The author and public speaker has spent the last five years of his life traversing the globe and educating people about bitcoin. But, as it turns out, he hadn’t exactly made himself rich along the way.
WIth the price of bitcoin soaring into the $16,000s, a grateful community has decided to give Antonopoulos’s fortunes a karmic boost. A spontaneous giving spree, fueled by social media, is under way. Thus far, more than 100 BTC, valued at over $1.7 million has been sent to his address
. alone sent an eye-popping 37 BTC, worth $500,000.
Along with the money, people are tweeting under the hashtag and reminding Antonopoulos of the many ways he made a difference in their lives.
“Words are my craft but tonight I am speechless,” the author of last night.
Never a Rich Man
Antonopoulos became involved with bitcoin in 2012. He has written two books on the subject, describing in detail the technical rules governing bitcoin in a way that a novice could understand, and has given more than 200 talks (many of them free) about bitcoin.
It is easy to imagine that someone who knows so much about bitcoin might have found a way to profit from it. A small investment in the virtual currency five years ago, when bitcoin was at around $6, would have netted the bitcoin writer a humongous profit. (bitcoin is currently listed at $16,000.) But Antonopoulos wasn’t really a speculator.
Indeed, as investor Roger Ver in one of his tweets, if Antonopoulos had put more money into bitcoin early on, he would have been a lot better off financially.
But Antonopoulos was too busy, too obsessed with spreading his vision of a world free from the strictures of legacy banks and payment systems. He wanted people to understand the technology and to appreciate its promise.
That early obsession, as he described in a recent , led him to undo a lifetime of savings and eventually fall into credit card debt as he tumbled down the bitcoin rabbit hole. He lived paycheck to paycheck for years until becoming debt-free at the end of 2016. Those bitcoins he’d collected and earned had to be cashed out along the way to support him and his family.
I did invest, Roger. Then I sold in 2013 to pay my rent. I didn't have disposable income to work for two years without pay and invest at the same time. I should've gone into more debt, but that would have been irresponsible towards my family who I supported
— Andreas M. Antonopoulos (@aantonop)
Because most people were not aware of Antonopoulos’s earlier struggles, some were puzzled when he recently began putting videos of his talks on , a membership platform that allows users to collect monthly subscription fees for services.
“I’m not a bitcoin millionnaire [sic],” Antonopoulos to one follower on Twitter. “My supporters on Patreon, many at $5/month, make it possible for me to work with independence.”
Developer Adam Back quickly with the suggestion that “if ‘sign guy’ can get a meaningful start from tips, we should try [to] find a way for the community to fund to a hodlers position.” And the community agreed.
Shortly thereafter, his number of Patreon supporters began to rise, and donations started to pour into Antonopoulos’s bitcoin address.
In addition to the funds that accumulated, accolades began to pour in from supporters far and wide on Twitter, Reddit and . Many credit him for getting them into bitcoin in the first place, for helping them to understand it and for inspiring them to pursue careers in the space.
“I don’t know anyone as authentic, well-intentioned and universally respected in the industry,” wrote entrepreneur Ryan Selkis in a .
for being a shining example of what a thought leader in the space should look like 👏👏
— Dan Hedl (@danheld)
“@aantonop is by far the BEST advocate and most eloquent speaker on #bitcoin. His speeches had a HUGE influence on me,” investor and author Brian Kelly.
“The community raised over $700,000 worth of bitcoin in a matter of hours for Andreas from all over the world, which beautifully shows the power of bitcoin itself, actually,” Erik Voorhees, CEO at cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift.
For Antonopoulos, the outpouring of support has been no less than overwhelming.
“I am going offline for a few days. I need time to process everything that happened,” he on Wednesday. “If you sent me a message in the last 48 hrs, thank you. If I don’t respond for a week or so, I apologize.”
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