A cryptocurrency trading platform cited recent options activity data, indicating that investors in the world's largest crypto expect bitcoin prices to plummet significantly, as bitcoin failed to reach the historical high of 0.1 million dollars.

Bitcoin set a historical high of 99,830 dollars on November 22, but has since fallen over 8%, dropping to 91,377.32 dollars on Tuesday, marking a new low in a week.

So far this year, this most famous cryptocurrency has soared 120%, rising about 34% this month, which is related to Trump's election as the president of the usa and a wave of pro-crypto lawmakers emerging in Congress. Trump supported digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the usa the "global cryptocurrency capital" and accumulate national bitcoin reserves.

Nick Forster, founder of the decentralized options protocol Derive with a total trading volume of 7.1 billion dollars, commented via email on Tuesday that the so-called bitcoin call-put skew index expiring on December 27 has dropped significantly by 30% in the past 24 hours, as market participants turned to more protective strategies.

The call-put skew reflects market sentiment, indicating the difference in implied volatility between call options and put options. Although there has been a decline, the index still shows that there are more call options than put options in the market.

Forster stated, "This suggests that traders are beginning to hedge against potential downside risks, which may be a response to the expected significant drop in bitcoin. However, such pullbacks are not uncommon in a bull market."

Investors are paying attention to December 27, when bitcoin options worth 11.8 billion dollars will expire, which could trigger significant price fluctuations in either direction.

According to Forster, by December 27, the probability of bitcoin dropping 16.03% to $81,493 or rising 19.9% to $115,579 is 68%. However, the probability of bitcoin experiencing greater volatility (dropping 29.49% to $68,429 or rising 41.83% to $137,645) is lower, around 5%.

Data from Derive also shows that the probability of bitcoin reaching $0.1 million has increased from 34% last week to 45%, and the probability of it exceeding $0.15 million is 4%.

Forster also pointed out that bitcoin's volatility has remained stable over the past seven days, with an implied volatility of 63% for the next seven days and 55% at the 30-day level, "This close consistency indicates that the market expects significant volatility to occur soon."

Bitcoin has currently experienced a top reversal, and one of the reasons cited by market participants for the price drop is profit-taking.

Anthony Pompliano, founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management, noted in a letter to clients on Tuesday that long-term holders have sold $60 billion worth of bitcoin in the past 30 days.

Since the collapse of FTX two years ago, which caused bitcoin to drop to $15,479, 21% of the bitcoin sold by long-term holders occurred in November, reportedly marking the "most severe profit-taking of this cycle so far."

Editor/Rocky