Will Crypto Markets React to $2B Bitcoin Options Expiring Today?

Around 30,600 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Feb. 20, with a notional value of roughly $2 billion. This event is a little smaller than last week’s expiry, so there is unlikely to be any impact on spot markets.

Crypto markets are in bear market territory, but have remained flat over the past week as volume and volatility dry up.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.59, meaning that there are more expiring calls (longs) than puts (shorts). Max pain is around $70,000, according to Coinglass, which is above current spot prices, so many will be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at $60,000 with $1.2 billion and $1 billion at $50,000 strike prices on Deribit as bearish bets increase. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been climbing this month and is at $36.5 billion.

“Positioning skews call heavy across both assets, with BTC showing the stronger upside skew,” said Deribit.

Meanwhile, derivatives analyst Laevitas observed that “downside protection remains in demand,” noting 2,140 BTC worth of puts at $58,000 recently bought.

https://twitter.com/DeribitOfficial/status/2024429481134608691?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 212,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $404 million, max pain at $2,050, and a put/call ratio of 0.75. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $6.8 billion.

This brings the total notional value of crypto options expiries to around $2.4 billion.

Spot Market Outlook

Total market capitalization has been flat for the past 24 hours and since the beginning of the week, hovering around $2.37 trillion, down 46% from its peak. Bitcoin has slowly eroded since Monday, hitting a weekly low of $65,700 in late trading on Thursday before recovering to $67,290 at the time of writing on Friday morning in Asia.

Resistance is forming at $70,000, with support still just above $60,000, and this seems to be the closest target. There has been no movement in Ether prices, which have started to consolidate around $1,950. The rest of the altcoins remain flat at bear market bottoms.

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