It seems that the market is not so confident about Bitcoin’s recovery. At least there are some signs in the futures market that show that investors are not so sure about the future of the most popular digital asset.

At the time of writing Bitcoin (BTC) is being traded around $3,625. Meanwhile, futures contracts are registering a discount of almost $100. January futures are currently being traded for $3,540. February and March futures are being traded for $3,525. June futures are being traded for $3,450.

These futures contracts are those traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) that launched cash-settled Bitcoin trading futures back in December 2017, when Bitcoin was reaching its all-time high of $20,000.

These futures contracts allow individuals to buy and sell Bitcoin at a specified price and date in the future. This allows investors to hedge against the performance of a specific asset. It also allows them to speculate with its price. This price discount that investors are paying for Bitcoin at CME’s futures platform shows that they remain bearish even after a small recovery above $4,000 a few days ago.

Users and investors are expecting Bitcoin price to be lower in the future, which is bearish, considering the fact that there are some important announcements that are going to be made during this first quarter. If Bitcoin futures start trading at a premium price compared to Bitcoin’s spot price, then this would be a very bullish sign for the market.

However, if there is a very large difference between spot and futures prices, that could be related to a trend reversal, as it happened back in 2017. At that time Bitcoin reached $20,000 but BTC futures were traded for $2,000 premium over spot prices.