$2.4B Bitcoin Options Expiry May Impact Markets
Following its recent all-time high of $73,580, Bitcoin is experiencing a retreat. However, market analysts are now questioning whether today’s significant expiry event will further drive prices lower. Approximately 30,600 Bitcoin options contracts, totaling around $2.45 billion, are set to expire on March 15.
While this week’s expiry event is slightly larger than the previous week’s, the end of March will witness a massive expiration worth almost $10 billion. The put/call ratio for the current batch of Bitcoin options stands at 0.78, indicating that more long contracts (calls) are being sold compared to shorts (puts).
Deribit, a platform offering cryptocurrency derivatives, reports considerable open interest (OI) at the $65,000 strike price, with a total notional value of $1.1 billion. Additionally, both the $60,000 and $70,000 strike prices have almost $1 billion in OI.
According to Greeks Live, a crypto derivatives tooling provider, BTC has already started to decline due to a recent shift in market tempo. The majority of declines are occurring during the US trading session, while gains are observed during the Asian trading session. Greeks Live suggests that the prevailing narrative regarding ETF inflows may be changing, as implied volatility (IV) for major terms has shown significant declines in recent days.
Today, approximately 331,000 Ethereum options contracts, valued at $1.2 billion, are also set to expire. The put/call ratio for ETH contracts is 0.69. Open interest is prominent at both the $4,000 and $3,000 strike prices.
As the Bitcoin and Ethereum options expire, the crypto markets have already started to slide. At the time of writing, the total market capitalization has fallen by 6.8% to $2.7 trillion during the Asian trading session on Friday. Bitcoin experienced a more than 7% plunge, dropping to $66,858 before recovering to the $68,000 level. Ethereum followed suit with a daily decline of 7.5% to $3,700. Most altcoins faced heavier losses, with the exception of Solana (SOL) and Near Protocol (NEAR), which showed daily gains.