Bitcoin's market value decreased by 1% to $27,546 on Friday following the expiration of options worth billions of dollars and bearish bets on the cryptocurrency's Ethereum-based wrapped version, WBTC. Market makers sold their spot and contracts to maintain a direction-neutral exposure, leading to the price drop. The sale of borrowed WBTC tokens may have also contributed to the decline. WBTC is the largest wrapped version of bitcoin on Ethereum and can be swapped on a 1:1 basis for BTC. The number of WBTC borrowed from decentralized lending protocol Aave has increased by 29% in two weeks, signaling renewed interest in taking an indirect bearish bet on bitcoin.

(By Omkar Godbole)