Bitcoin experienced a slight pullback yesterday evening. However, as of Friday, the expiration date of significant BTC options seems to have arrived. This situation could have an impact on what may happen with Bitcoin over the weekend. The price of Bitcoin turned around on November 16th and experienced a correction after reaching $38,000.
Today is the last day for Bitcoin options, and approximately 35,000 contracts will expire. According to Deribit, the value of these contracts is approximately $1.3 billion.
Current Situation of Bitcoin and Ethereum
The put/call ratio of today’s Bitcoin options was calculated as 0.49. This means that the number of long contract sellers is twice as much as short contract sellers.
Deribit also pointed out in its statement that the total open interest nominal value is $14.6 billion, which is around its peak level.
In addition, BTC options OI currently seems to surpass BTC futures. According to Deribit, this situation is an indicator of increasing market complexity.
Luuk Strijers, CCO of Deribit, made the following statement:
The open interest of BTC options surpassing the futures OI is a clear sign that the market is maturing. This change indicates that options are increasingly being preferred as tools for strategic positioning, hedging, or accessing implied volatility increases, reflecting the evolving complexity of the market.
According to analysts, despite Bitcoin testing the $38,000 level this week, the realized volatility has returned to a range of 40%.
In addition to the significant expiration of BTC options, approximately 268,000 Ethereum option contracts will also expire today. Their nominal value is around $531 million, and the put/call ratio is 0.41.
Similarly, Ethereum has more than twice as many sellers of call contracts compared to put contracts. Deribit analysts said:
Ethereum experienced a significant increase in realized volatility, rising to 60% in a single day after the news of BlackRock’s ETF application.
Current State of the Crypto Market
After a sensational 2022, the crypto markets seem to be having a good start to 2023. While there has been a 2.5% decline during the correction below the $1.5 trillion market cap seen in 2023, the total market value increased by 28% from the same period last month to $1.44 trillion.
Bitcoin prices were trading at $36,447, up 0.7% at the time of writing, returning to the price level it had last. Ethereum, on the other hand, experienced a 3.3% decrease and fell below $2,000. It was trading at $1,982 at the time of writing. Other altcoins also displayed a negative outlook.
