[Analysis] "Trump-driven bullish sentiment completely gone... long-term expectations still remain"

Analysis suggests that investors' expectations for cryptocurrency appreciation following Donald Trump's presidential election victory have completely disappeared.

On the 12th (local time), CoinDesk analyzed that "gains from the Trump rally have returned to square one" and "the market's bullish sentiment formed after President Trump's election has completely ended."

The media focused on the spread (price difference) between the front-month contract (futures contract with the closest expiration date) and the next-month contract (futures contract with the next expiration date) of Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin (BTC) futures standard contracts. According to TradingView data, this spread recorded $495, marking the lowest level since November 5 last year. This is a significant decrease compared to the peak of $1,705 recorded on December 17 last year.

Tomas Erdosi, product manager at CF Benchmarks, said, "The narrowing spread between CME Bitcoin futures' front-month and next-month contracts indicates that traders are lowering their expectations for Bitcoin prices," suggesting that 'Trump's election,' which was a major catalyst for the recent Bitcoin bull market, has likely already been priced in.

Furthermore, the media pointed out that expectations for Bitcoin reserves have also turned into disappointment. Unlike market expectations, the strategic reserve of Bitcoin did not lead to new Bitcoin purchases.

Ian Balina, founder of Token Metrics, also evaluated that "the Trump administration's strategic reserve plan is an announcement not to sell confiscated Bitcoin," adding that "despite being a positive measure, it had a negative impact on Bitcoin prices."

However, the media added that the Bitcoin futures market still maintains a contango state. Contango refers to a market structure where contracts with distant maturities trade at higher prices than contracts with near maturities. This means that market expectations that future prices will be higher than current prices are still valid.