How Will Markets React When $2.7B Bitcoin Options Expire Today?

Around 31,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Dec. 19, and they have a notional value of roughly $2.7 billion. This expiry event is smaller than average, so it will not impact spot markets, which have been sliding lower all week.

Various factors have contributed to the continued sell-off, including another Chinese Bitcoin mining crackdown, delayed crypto market regulations in the United States, and fear over the Bank of Japan hiking rates.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.8, meaning that there are slightly more calls expiring than puts (shorts). Max pain is around $88,000, according to Coinglass.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, is highest at $100,000, which has $2.3 billion at this strike price on Deribit. There remains around $2.1 billion in OI at $85,000, which was hit this week. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges is at $52.5 billion, according to Coinglass.

“BTC open interest is concentrated around $88K, with slightly heavier put positioning, pointing to a relatively contained expiry unless spot breaks range,” noted Deribit.

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In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 155,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $460 million, max pain at $3,100, and a put/call ratio of 1.1. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $11 billion and has been falling since late August.

“ETH positioning is more distributed across strikes, with notable upside interest above $3.4K, keeping larger moves in play if volatility reaccelerates,” said Deribit.

This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $3.2 billion.

Spot Market Outlook

Markets have fallen again, and total capitalization has dropped below $3 trillion to its lowest level since April.

Bitcoin saw yet another seemingly manipulated pump-and-dump after the CPI print, as it fell to $84,500 before reclaiming $85,000 during the Friday morning Asian trading session. The asset looks structurally weak here, and further losses are expected.

Ether prices also continued to weaken, falling below $2,800 briefly but holding on at this level for now. The altcoins were in more pain with heavier losses for XRP, Solana, and Cardano, all losing more than 4% on the day.

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