Around 39,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, October 10, and they have a notional value of roughly $4.3 billion.
This expiry event is a little larger than last week’s, but there is unlikely to be any impact on spot markets, which have been mostly sideways for the past few days.
The US government remains in shutdown mode, and the greenback continues to weaken, but crypto markets have largely shrugged this off.
Bitcoin Options Expiry
This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 1.1, meaning that there are slightly more short contracts expiring than longs, as the bulls regain composure. Max pain is around $117,000, according to Coinglass.
Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, is highest at $140,000, which has reached $2.4 billion at this strike price on Deribit. There is also over $2 billion in OI at $120k, $125k, and $130k, but short sellers have targeted $110,000 as a popular strike price with $1.3 billion in OI.
Total BTC options OI across all exchanges is around $60 billion, climbing back toward peak levels again, according to Coinglass.
“In the options market, implied volatility has lifted, skew turned neutral, and call-heavy flows dominate,” reported Glassnode this week. “Momentum remains strong, but bullish positioning is becoming increasingly crowded,” it added.
In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 217,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $940 million, max pain at $4,400, and a put/call ratio of 0.9.
Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $16 billion. This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $5.3 billion.
Crypto Market Outlook
Crypto markets haven’t moved much over the past 24 hours, with total capitalization remaining at $4.23 trillion.
Bitcoin hit an intraday high of $123,500 but pulled back again to trade around $121,000 during the Friday morning Asian session. The asset is 4% down from its all-time high and heading towards support at $120,000.
Ether prices fell back below $4,300 briefly in late trading on Thursday but recovered to around $4,350 at the time of writing. The altcoins were predominantly in the red this Friday morning.
