Investing.com-- Bitcoin price moved marginally on Wednesday and was nursing steep losses over the past week as fears of selling pressure from distributions by defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox weighed on sentiment.
Strength in the dollar weighed on broader crypto prices, as traders remained largely biased towards the greenback in anticipation of key U.S. inflation data this Friday. A reading on first-quarter economic growth is also on tap.
Bitcoin rose 0.7% over the past 24 hours to $61,465.7 by 08:29 ET (12:29 GMT). The world’s largest cryptocurrency had fallen as far as $59,000 earlier this week, as risk appetite remained largely negative.
Mt. Gox liquidators say Bitcoin sales to begin in July
Liquidators of the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox, which had collapsed from a hack in 2014, said this week that they will begin distributing tokens stolen from clients in the first week of July.
The liquidators had earlier this year mobilized about $9 billion worth of Bitcoin from cold wallets- an event that was expected to precede a potential distribution. They did not specify in their announcement this week what the scale of the distributions will be.
Clients receiving their stolen assets now will do so at a much higher price, which may see them inclined to offload the sell-offs. Such a scenario presents massive selling pressure on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash, which will also be distributed by Mt Gox, was also nursing steep losses this week.
The token was already under pressure from reports suggesting that German authorities had also begun selling thousands of Bitcoin confiscated from a piracy website.
Broader sentiment towards crypto was already under pressure from waning risk appetite, as traders pivoted into stabler assets such as the dollar amid fears of high U.S. interest rates.
Crypto investment products, specifically Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, were nursing two weeks of steep outflows.
Crypto price today: Altcoins see some bids as Bitcoin sentiment sours
Among broader crypto markets, altcoins marked some gains this week as the potential for increased selling pressure on Bitcoin spurred some flows into other crypto assets.
World no.2 token Ether rose 0.2% to $3,378.09, while SOL and ADA added 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively.
XRP also lagged, dropping 0.5%.
Among meme tokens, SHIB climbed 0.8%, while DOGE added 0.6%.
Crypto markets could see volatility as $10bn of Bitcoin, Ether options to expire
Crypto markets could face a surge in volatility at the end of this week as a significant amount of Bitcoin and Ether options is set to expire on the leading derivatives exchange, Deribit.
Specifically, BTC and ETH options worth $6.68 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively, will expire on Friday at 08:00 UTC. This represents over 40% of the current cumulative open interest, which exceeds $23 billion.
Large quarterly expiries often lead to increased volatility due to higher trading volumes and the closing or rollover of positions.
"As we approach Friday's large quarterly expiry, potentially influenced by 'quadruple witching' and related volatility in U.S. stock markets, over 25% of Deribit open interest is set to expire in-the-money, equating to over $2.7 billion. The total notional size of the expiry is over $10 billion," Deribit CEO said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Options are derivative contracts that grant the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date.
A call option gives the right to buy, while a put option gives the right to sell. On Deribit, each options contract represents one BTC or ETH.