Nearly $2.4 billion in cryptocurrency options expire today, with 36,000 Bitcoin options contracts. The face value of Bitcoin contracts today is around $1.68 billion, with a put/call ratio of 0.9 indicating a balance between bulls and bears. Ethereum options also expiring today have a face value of $680 million, with significant open interest at the $2,500 and $3,000 strike prices.
Friday is crypto options expiration day, with over $2 billion in BTC and ETH contracts set to liquidate or roll over today. Crypto markets have been surging in spot ETF approvals this week, but can they continue?
Around 36,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on January 12. The big expiration event is bigger than last week, which saw $1 billion worth of contracts expire with little impact on the markets. As it may be recalled, January 5 was the expiration day of Bitcoin options, with almost $1 billion in contracts.
Bitcoin Options Data Shows Major OI at $50,000 Strike Price
The face value of the current large tranche of Bitcoin contracts is around $1.68 billion. Furthermore, the put/call ratio for this lot is 0.9, which means that the bulls and bears are evenly selling long and short contracts. The maximum weak point for this set is $45,000, a little lower than the current spot market price.
According to Deribit, there is still a lot of open interest at the $50,000 strike price with $1.2 billion in call options. With such a large concentration of call options at this price, derivatives traders anticipate BTC prices to rise in late January.
Greek’s Live commented that Bitcoin spot ETF approvals were approved this week as expected. However, repeated fake and breaking news made the market “frequent and markedly volatile.” The hack on the SEC’s X account generated various speculations about its cause. Some speculated, half-jokingly, that an SEC “intern” sent the tweet by mistake.
Implied volatility across all major timeframes declined significantly due to lower-than-expected market volatility, he added. The long-term outlook is strong, with a lot of incremental capital flowing into the cryptocurrency market, Greek’s Live noted before concluding as follows:
“But in the short term there is still significant uncertainty in the market with a number of factors at play, and strong volatility, like this week, could continue for several days.”
Most investors considered the impact of the ETF news (fake or real) on Bitcoin to be limited, he noted. In addition, many investors “have carried out the operation of reducing leverage and positions,” he said before stating that this was an “early selling of the news” event.
Ethereum Options Expiration
The big batch of Bitcoin options expiring today. 262.00 million Ethereum contacts will also expire. The face value of these options is $680 million and the put/call ratio is 0.64. These have a soft top of $2,400, which is also a bit lower than current spot prices. Additionally, there is a lot of open interest with call options at ETH strike prices of $2,500 and $3,000, according to Deribit.
Crypto markets are up 1% on the day to $1.86 trillion, although they are not likely to be affected by the expiration of options derivatives. Bitcoin remains at $46,262, while Ethereum, which has outperformed this week, was recently trading just above $2,600.
Ethereum price has, in fact, gained more than 5% since the fake news incident. As a result, ETH prices have approached their 21-month high of $2,400. “Ethereum over here just doing what it wants through all of this,” observed cryptocurrency trader @nebraskangooner.
By Audy Castaneda
