Crypto
$10B Bitcoin Options Expiry Looms: BTC Price Crash Coming?
Bitcoin's $10.16 billion options expiry is set for Friday. With BTC below $60K, traders fear higher volatility and further crypto market losses.
16d ago 4,280
BLOCKINSIDERLoadingBitcoin's $10.16 billion options expiry is set for Friday. With BTC below $60K, traders fear higher volatility and further crypto market losses.
Bitcoin is heading into one of the biggest derivatives events of the year, with more than $10 billion worth of Bitcoin options set to expire on Friday. Today, the bitcoin price has dropped below the key $60,000. Now, with this massive options expiry occurring on Friday, this could increase market volatility and add further selling pressure on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market
According to Deribit, the world's largest crypto options exchange, approximately 162,000 Bitcoin options contracts, worth around $10.16 billion in notional value, will expire on Friday.
To put that into perspective, last week's expiry involved about 31,000 Bitcoin contracts worth roughly $1.9 billion. This week's settlement is more than five times larger, making it one of the biggest quarterly expiries the market has faced this year.
The options market currently shows a put-to-call ratio of 0.81, meaning there are still more bullish call contracts than bearish put contracts. However, Bitcoin's current price tells a very different story.
With BTC trading around $61,700, it remains well below the expiry's max pain level of $72,000.
One of the biggest things to worry about from this week's expiry is that inside this expiry isn't the total value of the contracts, it's how many traders are already losing.
There are roughly 87,000 call options compared with 76,000 put options, showing that many traders had positioned for Bitcoin to go up.
But since Bitcoin dropped from above $70,000 to below $60,000, many call options with strike prices of $80,000 and higher lost most of their value.
Current market data suggests that nearly $8.6 billion worth of bullish call options are now out of the money. Unless Bitcoin sees an extraordinary rally before Friday's expiry.
Well-known crypto analyst Shanaka Perera says that traders are paying close attention to three important price levels. The first is $60,000, where roughly $450 million worth of put options are concentrated.
If Bitcoin falls below that level, additional dealer hedging could increase selling pressure and create sharper downside moves.
The second is $72,000, the expiry's max pain level. Although reaching that price before Friday appears unlikely, it remains an important reference point for derivatives traders.
Finally, $80,000 represents one of the largest call-option clusters in the market. Even if Bitcoin rebounds sharply, many analysts believe this area could act as strong resistance because of the large number of outstanding bullish contracts.
This week's settlement also arrives when overall market sentiment is already fragile. Bitcoin briefly fell to $59,023, its lowest level since October 2024, before recovering toward $61,700. At the same time, fading institutional demand, weaker ETF buying, and ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty have reduced confidence across the crypto market.
The options expiry also comes just a day before the crypto market saw a 1billion in liquidation.
According to Coinglass data, more than 178,000 traders were liquidated across the crypto market over the past 24 hours, with total liquidations exceeding $1 billion. Long positions accounted for roughly $780 million of those losses as Bitcoin briefly slipped below the critical $60,000 level.
Friday's expiry is unlikely to decide where Bitcoin trades for the rest of the year, but it could shape short-term market sentiment.
Once the contracts settle, traders will shift their attention back to ETF flows, macroeconomic data, and whether buyers can defend the $60,000 support level.
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