A year and a half ago, Bitcoin was a real breakthrough.
Today, it is owned by BlackRock.
The numbers are staggering. Currently, IBIT holds open options on Bitcoin worth 38 billion dollars. The offshore giant Deribit, dominating since 2016, is valued at 32 billion dollars. For the first time in history, ETFs from Wall Street control more Bitcoin derivatives than all crypto exchanges combined.
This is not evolution. This is extinction.
In four years, the 90-day volatility of Bitcoin has fallen from 90 to 38. The structural decline was 58%. An asset that once rose by 15% on Tuesday now trades like a high-tech stock with improved marketing.
Cathy Wood said it directly: 'The four-year cycle is being disrupted.'
She is right. Institutional adoption has absorbed the selling pressure that once led to declines of 70-80%. The brutal winters that created fortunes in cryptocurrencies are no longer in existence.
Today at 08:00 UTC, options worth $4.3 billion expire. The maximum value of options is $90,000. But here's what is missing in the old methodology: expiration signals from Deribit now cover less than half of the actual market. The other half is traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker BlackRock.
Your historical correlations are weakening. Rates that lock in maximum profit are falling. Volatility premiums are shrinking. Profits are being sold off, and they are collecting what remains of Bitcoin's wild soul.
Standard Chartered just lowered its 2025 target from $200,000 to $100,000. Not because Bitcoin has crashed. Because it has done too well in becoming what institutions wanted.
The crypto market that created billionaires out of ordinary traders has ended.
There remains a regulated, contained volatility version of digital gold based on ETFs.
The revolution has taken place.
Adapt accordingly.
