Bad news, BTC fans! American bookmakers US-Bookies.com have given 8/11 (or 57.9%) odds that the world’s most popular cryptocurrency will fall to $10,000 this year. The last time BTC’s price was that low was October 2, 2020, when the price reached $10,416.
Given that, back in April, US-Bookies.com was giving 4-to-1 odds (or 20%) that BTC would hit $10k, today’s odds look dismal. The massive shift over the two months indicates a growing unease about the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Since October 2020, BTC’s been on a historic bull run, setting an eye-watering all-time high of $64.8k just two months ago. Growing institutional adoption from Tesla, SkyBridge Capital and MicroStrategy fuelled a speculative frenzy, which has since cooled off.
Today BTC sits back down at $35.2k after suffering the worst crash in its twelve years of existence last month. This was largely thanks to bearish news from China—Chinese payments associations reiterated their support for central bank’s 2017 ban on crypto transactions—alongside growing concerns about BTC’s environmental impact. These concerns were voiced loudest by Tesla CEO and $1.5 billion BTC HODLer, Elon Musk.
How finance is betting on BTC.
Futures traders are not nearly as pessimistic. According to Deribit, the current strike price for BTC futures contracts that expire in December 2021—a bet on the future price of BTC—is around $37k, indicating that futures traders expect the price to remain about the same.
In a market update on June 9, Singaporean crypto investment firm QCP Capital predicted that “BTC price looks likely to remain capped till year end.”
The firm, which actively traded BTC futures, added: “We no longer see a fast recovery to $50k… it’s hard to make a bullish fundamental argument to buy BTC right now.”
So, dire cynicism from bookmakers and more moderate pessimism from futures traders.
