Bitcoin (BTC) is down to its lowest levels of December, dropping under $92,000, and many crypto enthusiasts are trying to figure out why. Chris Burniske, a former ARK Invest crypto lead and current partner at Placeholder VC, has shared his thoughts as he is looking at the bigger picture, not just the crypto world.
Inn Burniske’s view, the year-end drop in Bitcoin is less about investors losing interest and more about seasonal financial patterns that now influence the cryptocurrency market. With the long-awaited launch of multiple Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in 2024, crypto has become more tightly linked to traditional finance.
This connection amplifies the effects of year-end activities like portfolio rebalancing and account reconciliation.
Despite $BTC playing with fire, $ETHBTC, $SOLETH, and $SOLBTC continue to do work. Shows me this isn’t so much a diminishment of risk appetite, as much as it is likely driven by EOY flows as people tidy their books for 2024. pic.twitter.com/lcfxkeFN1g
— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) December 30, 2024
It is interesting to see that while BTC is struggling, other crypto assets like ETH and SOL are holding their own or even gaining steam, notes Burniske. This goes against the idea that the market is totally avoiding risk and suggests that it is more about the usual end-of-year financial housekeeping.
It looks like trading strategies and algorithms, which are often influenced by institutions, have changed to adapt to these seasonal trends.
The holiday season is usually a slow time for trading, so it is interesting to see how it is affecting crypto. It has been a big year for the digital assets market, with new ETFs launching and more people getting involved.
This said, crypto is now officially part of the stock market, whether we like it or not. This means that the correlation with the main assets, or at least with their main behavioral patterns, is here to stay, which one cannot avoid.
