About 19,300 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, January 10, worth around $1.8 billion.
This week’s expiration events are very similar to last week’s, with little impact on the spot market. Bitcoin has been on a decline in recent days after reaching six-figure levels.
This week’s Bitcoin options contract tranche has a put/call ratio of 0.65, meaning there are more long (call) contracts than short (put) contracts expiring.
Open interest, the value or number of options contracts that have not yet expired, was highest at $120,000, with $1.48 billion in OI, according to Deribit. There was also over $1 billion in OI at the $100,000 and $110,000 strike prices, indicating that speculators remain bullish.
“In terms of options data, short-term IV (implied volatility) increased slightly but remained low, with the market projecting no change in future volatility,” crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live commented this week.
“We are not seeing the same level of excitement in leveraged positions as indicated by the two increases to the psychological six-figure level,” Deribit reported in its weekly outlook. It added that futures trading is profitable for those shorting Bitcoin. However, more traders are still buying long-term contracts.
In addition to today’s Bitcoin options, around 140,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring today. These contracts have a notional value of $455 million and a put/call ratio of 0.47. This brings the combined value of crypto options expiring on Friday to around $2.2 billion.
The total crypto market capitalization has plunged another 4.4% on the day to $3.37 trillion. The market may be distracted by the possibility of the US government selling billions of dollars of Bitcoin, but the asset remains in its moving channel.
Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $91,250 but recovered to return to the $93,000 level during Friday morning trading. However, it has lost another 2% in the past 24 hours and is down 9% since reaching six figures on January 7.
The asset is approaching the lower boundary of a horizontal channel that began in mid-November and needs to stay at this level to avoid a bigger drop.
Ethereum and other altcoins were also in the red zone on Friday morning as the market correction deepened due to US inflation concerns and fears of a potential sell-off.
