The recent crypto rally faltered, with Bitcoin price moving from over $90,000 on Monday to the current $88,000 and the market capitalization of all tokens falling to $3.07 trillion. Some of the top laggards in the crypto market were tokens like Aave, Zcash, Midnight, and Canton.
Crypto Rally Stalls Ahead of a Big Options Expiry
One main reason why the crypto market rally has stalled is that investors are bracing for a big options expiry on Friday. Bitcoin options worth over $23.6 billion will expire, with bulls betting on a jump to $100,000 and bears positioning for a drop to $85,000. The maximum pain in this case is $96,000.
Historically, crypto prices tend to be highly volatile when there is a major options expiry. For example, the market was fairly volatile on Friday last week as investors waited for a small $3.4 billion Bitcoin options expiry.
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Potential Manipulation in the Crypto Market
Some crypto market analysts believe that the ongoing price action is part of market manipulation in the crypto industry.
In an X post, Bull Theory noted that Bitcoin and other tokens were the only assets in the red as the stock market neared its all-time high and as gold and silver soared.
Accusations of market manipulation in the crypto industry by large players like Wintermute and Binance have remained at an elevated level in the past few months, especially after the huge liquidation event that happened on October 10 this year. On that day, millions of traders were wiped out, with losses soaring to over $20 billion.
The ongoing crypto market crash has also led to more liquidations as Monday’s jump turned out to be a dead-cat bounce. The 24-hour liquidations of bulls jumped by 5% to over $200 million.
Bitcoin Price has Formed Risky Patterns
In this report, we explained that the Bitcoin price had formed some important bearish patterns on the daily chart.
Specifically, we pointed to the bearish pennant pattern and the fact that it has remained below the 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMA) and the Supertrend indicators.
The weekly chart points to more weakness in the near term as the coin has formed a giant rising wedge pattern, which often leads to a bearish breakdown. It has already moved below the lower side of this pattern and is now slowly forming a bearish pennant pattern.
Therefore, the coin will likely have a strong bearish breakdown in the coming weeks, a move that will intensify the crypto market crash.
READ MORE: Ethereum Price Prediction as Rare Bearish Pattern Forms
