Wild volatility has taken over the bitcoin market as the coin tries to break the $20,000 levels. On the other hand, the bitcoin futures are also challenging their record highs. On December 1, bitcoin futures hit $20,300 as the all-time highs finally started to change into a new price era for the BTC/USD pair.
Data acquired from TradingView showed Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures surging past $20,000 on Tuesday. Interestingly, the $20K levels seem to be sparking unique volatility and at the time of publication highs of $20,300 had appeared. The volatility also saw bitcoin plunge to $19,000 within 10 minutes.
But, the move is a momentous occasion for Bitcoin which has so far set an all-time high at $19,924. Is the price discovery phase already here? Time will tell.
Futures are often a modest percentage higher than the spot price and it was expected that CME and other operators’ order books would head into the price discovery phase first. CME surged above $20K when it launched around $20,700 in December 2017 with the market still eyeing a new all-time high on December 1.
According to previous reports, record volumes and open interest had already made analysts keen to determine the extent of institutional interest in bitcoin as 2021 comes to an end. This year is different from 2017 when the crypto tried to crack $20,000 on the spot markets which coincided with the first futures markets going live.
Due to last weekend’s volatility, a massive $1,300 gap in futures markets remained open as the new highs were reached. That suggested bitcoin would drop to fill the gap. In that case, such a pullback may take the pair towards $16,900.
