Bitcoin at $79,568 before Friday's options expiry

Here is what is documented: bitcoin trades at $79,568 on Tuesday morning, measured at 05:41 Central European Time on CoinGecko, and on Friday at 9 a.m. a total of 135,545 bitcoin contracts expire on the options exchange Deribit. Our reading follows further down: the expiry explains why the price has been moving in a narrow range for days, but it says nothing about the direction afterwards.

If you hold bitcoin, this is no academic question. An expiry of this size ties up capital until Friday morning that is then released, and this time it coincides with the last trading day of the month. Anyone looking to sell or add this week meets a market whose range is being held artificially tight.

The night stayed tight, $79,421 marked the low

Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin traded between $79,421 and $80,680. That is a gap of $1,259, or 1.6 percent measured against the low. For comparison: in the week before, the distance between daily high and daily low regularly exceeded $3,000. The market has not calmed down because there is nothing to trade, then, but because the hand that usually reaches in is currently tied.

Little has shifted against yesterday morning's level. Bitcoin stood at $79,978 then and at $79,568 today. That is $410 less, or 0.5 percent. The $80,000 mark, which the price briefly reclaimed over the course of Monday, again failed to hold into the evening.