Bitcoin options expiration date is here at $1.3B in notional value
Bitcoin pulled back a bit overnight, but this Friday's big BTC options expiration event may have an impact on weekend activity. In the year After closing at $38,000 on November 16, Bitcoin prices have started to correct.
Friday is Bitcoin options expiration day, and around 35,000 contracts are about to expire. Today's expiration value is less than $1.3 billion, Deribit says.
Bitcoin options expire
The put/call ratio for today's set of Bitcoin options is 0.49, meaning there are twice as many sellers of long contracts than shorts.
Deribit is reporting total open interest notional value of $14.6 billion, which is near record highs. Open interest is the number of open contracts that have not yet been closed or are due to expire.
Moreover, the OI of BTC options is now higher than that of BTC futures. As Deribit reported earlier this week, this is a sign of “increasing market complexity.”
DeriBit CCO Luke Striggers said before adding, “The outperformance of BTC alternatives is a clear sign of market maturity with interest in OI futures.”
“This shift indicates a growing choice of options as tools for strategic positioning, hedging or, more recently, to gain the increased volatility of volatility.
Analysts added that Bitcoin's perceived volatility returned to the 40% range as the spot price tested but failed to sustain the 38,000 level this week.
If you are interested in trading Bitcoin derivatives, check out BeInCrypto's guide here.
In addition to the massive BTC options expiration, about 268,000 Ethereum options contracts also expire today. These have a notional value of approximately $531 million and a call ratio of 0.41.
Again, there are twice as many sellers of calls (long) than contracts (short). Deribit analysts wrote:
“Ethereum surged 12% in one day following news of BlackRock's ETF filing, pushing its 10-day implied volatility to 60%.”
Crypto market overview
In the year Crypto markets retreated 2.5% on the day as the correction from the 2023 high below $1.5 trillion continued. The total market value was $1.44 trillion at the time of writing, up 28 percent from the same period last month.
At press time, Bitcoin prices were down 2.6% to $36,447 and are now back to the same levels as last Friday.
Ethereum fell by 3.3%, retracing below $2,000 to trade at $1,982 at the time of writing. Additionally, altcoins were mostly in the red in Asian trade on Friday.
Disclaimer
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