Will Markets Keep Falling When $1.8B Bitcoin Options Expire Today? 

Approximately 19,300 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Jan. 10, with a notional value of around $1.8 billion.

This week’s expiry event is very similar to last week’s, which did not have any direct impact on spot markets. Bitcoin has been in retreat for the past few days following its latest foray into six-figure territory.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s tranche of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.65, which means that there are more long (call) contracts expiring than short (put) contract sellers.

Open interest, or the value or number of options contracts yet to expire, is highest at the $120,000 strike price, with $1.48 billion in OI, according to Deribit. There is also over $1 billion in OI at the $100,000 and $110,000 strike prices, with speculators remaining relatively bullish.

“In terms of options data, short-term IVs (implied volatility) rebounded slightly but remained at low levels, with the market pricing in future volatility unchanged,” commented crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live earlier this week.

“We do not see the same level of exuberance in leveraged positions that had marked the first two forays above the key psychological 6-figure mark,” reported Deribit in its weekly insight. It added that futures trading is profitable for those betting on short positions against Bitcoin (puts). However, more traders are still buying calls.

In addition to today’s Bitcoin options, around 140,000 Ethereum contracts are expiring today. These have a notional value of $455 million and a put/call ratio of 0.47. This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $2.2 billion.

Crypto Market Correction Deepens

Total crypto market capitalization has tanked a further 4.4% on the day to $3.37 trillion at the time of writing. Markets may have been rattled by the premise of the US government selling billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin but the asset remains within its rangebound channel.

Bitcoin slid to an intraday low of $91,250 but recovered to reclaim the $93,000 level during Friday morning trading in Asia. However, it has lost another 2% over the past 24 hours and is down 9% since it topped six figures on Jan. 7.

The asset is approaching the lower bounds of a sideways channel that began in mid-November and it needs to hold this level to prevent a larger break to the downside.

#BTC

Bitcoin has dwindled to pretty much the very bottom of its $91000-$101165 range

Needs to hold the $91k Range Low as support (blue) to avoid further downside and actually deepening this multi-week corrective period$BTC #Crypto #Bitcoin https://t.co/Bn24aJuxtd pic.twitter.com/doIFyA6qYU

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) January 9, 2025

Ethereum and the altcoins were all in the red this Friday morning as the market correction deepened on US inflation fears and FUD over the potential selloff.