This Friday’s big Bitcoin options expiry event may impact markets since it is the end of the month. Moreover, BTC and its brethren have held on to recent gains despite a week of turbulent news.
Friday is Bitcoin options expiry day, and around 108,000 contracts are set to expire. It is also the end of the month, which makes it a much larger expiry than previous events, but will it move markets?
Bitcoin Options Expiry
The notional value for today’s expiring tranche is a little over $4 billion, according to Deribit. The max pain price, or the level at which most losses will occur upon expiry, is around $33,000. This is significantly lower than the current spot BTC price of $37,400.
The put/call ratio for today’s Bitcoin options batch is 0.83, meaning there are slightly more sellers of long (call) contracts than shorts (put). Today’s batch has the largest expiration until December 29, which marks the last of the year.
Furthermore, Deribit is reporting a total open interest notional value of around $15 billion, which is close to peak levels. Open interest is the number of open contracts that have yet to be closed or expire.
Bitcoin OI by expiry. Source: Deribit
A $40,000 BTC strike price is a popular bet for derivatives traders as there are 25,754 calls at this level, according to Deribit.
Market participants do not appear to be fazed by the fate of one of the industry’s most influential players, Changpeng Zhao.
Ethereum Contracts Update
In addition to the expiring Bitcoin options contracts, there are $2.4 billion in notional value Ethereum options expiring on November 24.
The put/call ratio for today’s 1.2 million expiring ETH contracts is 0.71. There are slightly more calls than puts than the equivalent for Bitcoin contracts, and the max pain point is $1,700.
Moreover, there is a lot of interest in strike prices for Ethereum at both $1,900 and $2,300.
Crypto markets have remained flat over the last day after bouncing back from the bad news about Binance. Additionally, derivatives expiries rarely have such an impact on spot markets, so things may well remain subdued over the weekend.
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