December 26th is a bit special for the market — a large number of options are expiring, combined with the holiday period when liquidity is already thin. These factors stack up and make the market a bit restless.

The most direct scale: a major derivatives platform today has approximately $28.5 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expiring. Bitcoin options are the most intense, with $24 billion in contracts expiring, over 300,000 contracts, with strike prices mainly clustered at $85,000 and $100,000. Ethereum is relatively milder, with a scale of $4.5 billion, but its strike prices are also concentrated at $2,900 and $3,000. Such high concentration of expiries often triggers gamma hedging adjustments, especially when liquidity is already limited, causing prices to jump.

Liquidity is indeed an issue. During the Christmas holiday, global markets are on break, and trading volume on exchanges has been cut in half — Bitcoin trading volume is nearly 50% lower than usual. Institutions have also been quite cautious these days, observing the market. Data shows that on December 24th, Bitcoin spot ETFs experienced a net outflow of $175 million, with one major fund alone seeing over $90 million outflow; Ethereum ETFs also saw net outflows of $57 million. This indicates that institutions are currently taking a wait-and-see approach.

There was also a small incident: on December 24th, a major exchange’s Bitcoin trading pair experienced a strange flash candle — the price jumped from $87,600 to $24,100, then instantly rebounded near $87,000. It sounds alarming, but this was mostly caused by a liquidity gap leading to abnormal quotes; the actual selling pressure wasn’t that intense, just a moment of liquidity shortage that was temporarily pulled out.

Overall, the narrow-range oscillation may continue over the next couple of days. The effects of options expiry volatility, holiday liquidity shortages, and institutional caution all point to a short-term environment unlikely to see a major breakout.