Will Crypto Markets Recover When $2 Million Bitcoin Options Expire Today?

About 28,000 Bitcoin options contracts expire on Friday, November 1, with a theoretical value of about $2 billion.

Today’s options expiration is much smaller than last week’s month-end event, which saw more than double the value of BTC options expire. Therefore, its impact on the spot markets is likely to remain.

Expiration of Bitcoin Options

This week’s stretch of Bitcoin options contracts, the first in November, has a put/call ratio of 0.92. This means that the maturities of long (calls) and short (puts) contracts are more evenly distributed. The peak pain point for today’s lot is $69,000, which is pretty close to current spot prices.

Additionally, open interest (OI), or the value or number of open options contracts that have yet to expire, has increased to $1.3 billion at the strike price of $80,000, according to Deribit.

This week Arbelos Markets Head of Derivatives Joshua Lim noted that CME Bitcoin options saw some of the highest volume days ahead of the US election. He said there was heavy buying for the $85,000 strike price, which is “very bullish positioning in the election,” before adding that “it was great to see institutions go big like that on CME.”

“Perhaps it is a good sign that there is and will be increasing liquidity in the crypto derivatives markets as the asset class matures.”

Options data from November 1
28,000 BTC options expired with a Put Call ratio of 0.92, a Maxpain point of $69,000 and a notional value of $1.97 billion.
137,000 ETH options expired with a Put Call ratio of 0.69, a Maxpain point of $2,550 and a notional value of $350 million.
Bitcoin hit… pic.twitter.com/skJ4ofhpOk

— Greeks.live (@GreeksLive) November 1, 2024

In addition to the current Bitcoin options, there are around 137,000 Ethereum options contracts ready to expire with a put/call ratio of 0.68, a maximum pain point of $2,550 and a notional value of 350 millions of dollars. That brings the notional expiration value of Friday’s combined crypto options to about $2.3 billion.

Crypto market outlook

Over the past 24 hours, around $100 billion of the total crypto market cap has been dumped, bringing it down to $2.43 trillion in a 5.5% drop.

Bitcoin flirted with its all-time high on October 30, but did not breach it and did not move to a new price discovery. It has since corrected 4%, briefly dipping below $69,000 during Friday morning’s Asian trading session.

Ethereum reached $2,700 but was unable to find further momentum and has since retreated to $2,500.

Also, most altcoins have remained lethargic all week, not following Bitcoin’s big move, and most of them are in the red this Friday morning.

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