Bitcoin (BTC) Price's Volatility Meltdown: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin BTC $ 92,285.06, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, continues to trade directionless above $90,000, with implied volatility in meltdown as the year end approaches.

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Volmex's BVIV, which tracks bitcoin's options-based 30-day implied volatility, has dropped to an annualized 45.10%, the lowest since Nov. 10, according to TradingView data. That's down from a peak of 65% observed on Nov. 21.

Coins like ZEC and AAVE have gained over 9% in the past 24 hours, outpacing BTC and ether ETH $ 3,240.61. HYPE, TAO and SUI are up over 5% while KAS and TRX are down over 1%. The CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 Indices are up over 2% each, pointing to some bullishness in the broader market.

Analysts say they expect the choppy price action in BTC to continue.

"Traders should expect high-volatility chop and avoid extrapolating intraday strength," Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN, said in an email.

"The market is stabilizing, but the foundation remains fragile. Price action is constructive, yet liquidity is thin and ETF flows are split, the hallmark of a market searching for direction rather than committing to one," he said.

This is consistent with financial markets' tendency to take time to recover following a crash that dents investor confidence and clears excessive leverage.

Speaking of leverage, cumulative open interest in BTC and ETH futures and perpetual futures has dropped by 36% and 35%, respectively, over the past three months. Open interest in solana SOL $ 138.63 and XRP $ 2.0409 has declined 53% and 59.5%, respectively, with DOGE $ 0.1410 seeing a 70% decline.

Clearly, there has been a major offloading of risk, led by memecoins.

In traditional markets, gold has resumed its rally, with the dollar weakening to multiweek lows following the Fed meeting. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Crypto Dec. 12: EstateX (ESX) platform becomes available to everyone. Fractional real estate shares are purchasable via PROPX. Dec. 12: Stripe turns on dollar‑settled stablecoin payments for merchants, supporting USDC on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and Base, USDP on Ethereum and Solana and USDG on Ethereum.

Macro Dec. 12: Federal Reserve begins reserve‑management purchases of Treasury bills under the implementation note to the Dec. 10 FOMC decision.

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) Nothing scheduled.

(Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Governance votes & calls Dec. 12: Arbitrum and Lava Network to host a fireside chat on scaling blockchains with RPC APIs. Nexus Mutual DAO is voting on starting a USDC vault by Q1 to generate yield for sophisticated investors by backing real-world insurance policies. Voting ends Dec. 13.

Unlocks Dec. 13: CHEEL $ 0.5322

Token Launches Dec. 12: RaveDAO (RAVE) to be listed on Binance, Gate.io, MEXC, Kraken, Bitget, BitMart, and others.



Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

Day 2of 3: Solana Breakpoint 2025 (Abu Dhabi)

Market Movements

BTC is down 0.36% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $92,560.78 (24hrs: +2.34%)

ETH is unchanged at $3,253.10 (24hrs: +1.27%)

CoinDesk 20 is unchanged at 2,940.88 (24hrs: +2.26%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 5 bps at 2.84%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0078% (8.5957% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.12% at 98.47

Gold futures are up 1.25% at $4,367.00

Silver futures are up 0.12% at $64.67

Nikkei 225 closed up 1.37% at 50,836.55

Hang Seng closed up 1.75% at 25,976.79

FTSE is up 0.24% at 9,726.05

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.52% at 5,783.89

DJIA closed on Thursday up 1.34% at 48,704.01

S&P 500 closed up 0.21% at 6,901.00

Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.25% at 23,593.86

S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.54% at 31,660.73

S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.34% at 3,171.63

U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 2.5 bps at 4.166%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.14% at 6,897.50

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.49% at 25,588.50

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.21% at 48,850.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.38% (-0.12%)

Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03507 (0.21%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,096 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $39.46

Total fees: 2.65 BTC / $240,075

CME Futures Open Interest: 123,350 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 21.3 oz.

BTC vs gold market cap: 6.18%

Technical Analysis

Tether gold's daily chart in candlestick format. (TradingView)

The chart shows daily price swings in XAUT $ 4,334.22

The token's price recently broke out of triangular consolidation, refreshing the broader uptrend.

Prices now seem headed for record highs.

Crypto Equities

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $269.02 (-2.21%), +0.55% at $270.49 in pre-market

Circle (CRCL): closed at $88.57 (+0.18%), -0.16% at $88.43

Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $29.86 (+1.15%), unchanged in pre-market

Bullish (BLSH): closed at $45.38 (-1.63%), -0.22% at $45.28

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.84 (-0.67%), +0.17% at $11.86

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.75 (+1.16%), unchanged in pre-market

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.40 (+0.4%), -0.11% at $17.38

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $14.82 (+2%), -0.47% at $14.75

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $46.34 (+0.94%)

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $16.59 (+5.47%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

Strategy (MSTR): closed at $183.30 (-0.73%), -0.1% at $183.12

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $19.22 (-5.55%)

SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $11.53 (-4.08%), +0.95% at $11.64

Upexi (UPXI): closed at $2.41 (-1.63%), +3.73% at $2.50

Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.81 (-1.63%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flows: -$77.5 million

Cumulative net flows: $57.84 billion

Total BTC holdings ~1.31 milli

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flows: -$42.3 million

Cumulative net flows: $13.13 billion

Total ETH holdings ~6.33 million

Source: Farside Investors

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