Weak PayPal Pump Leaves Market Mostly Flat With BTC at $38K

PayPal executive Jose Fernandez da Ponte saying during a Wednesday Consensus 2021 panel that the payments firm will allow its crypto users to move balances to different wallets. This could be a way for retail traders to get into crypto by using PayPal’s existing banking rails, and then push increased liquidity into venues like exchanges. Henrik Kugelberg, a crypto over-the-counter trader, told CoinDesk he has been seeing increased bitcoin buying as of late. He thinks bitcoin’s gold-like store-of-value properties in uncertain times will prompt many people to continue to scoop up BTC.

Bitcoin’s 30-day volatility has been dropping the past two days, down to 88.4%. Gold’s volatility has been dipping, too, at 12.2%, according to CoinDesk Research data. After the $50,000 strike price, where there’s 16,000 BTC in open interest in the options market, the $40,000 strike is the next popular spot for options traders, according to data from Skew. While that might seem bearish at first look, George Clayton, partner at investment firm Cryptanalysis Capital, thinks this orientation is more about hedging.

“It’s impossible to ascertain if traders are oriented short from $40,000,” Clayton said. “That open interest could mean they are long BTC and buying protection, or are delta hedged and simply long volatility, just as much as it could mean they are bearish.” Crypto’s roller coaster-type price changes are why smart derivatives traders are holding options at $40,000 and not necessarily a bear-mode mentality, said Nathan Cox, chief investment officer at digital asset firm Two Prime.

Weak PayPal Pump Leaves Market Mostly Flat With BTC at $38K, ETH $2.7K, CoinDesk, May 28