Will Crypto Markets React To $1.8B Bitcoin Options Expiring Today?

The end of the week is here again, which means another bunch of crypto options contracts are expiring as spot markets continue to pull back again.

Around 27,600 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, April 3, with an estimated value of about $1.8 billion. This event is smaller than usual, so it is less likely to affect existing markets.

Crypto prices have been largely sideways this week, with the overall cap declining on Friday.

Bitcoin Options Expiration

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.54, meaning there are more longs than shorts expiring. The maximum pain is $68,000, according to Coinglass, which is close to current prices, most of which will be in the money when they expire.

Open interest (OI), or the amount or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains very high at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit, with a $1.5 billion bet.

The total number of OI BTC options on all exchanges has rebounded following the end of the Q1 expiration event and is currently at 31 billion.

Bitcoin put (short) options are more expensive than those on Ethereum on most time frames, suggesting traders are more concerned about BTC risk, Deribit noted this week.

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, about 157,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a symbolic value of $322 million, maximum pain at $2,100, and a put/call ratio of 0.73. Total OI ETH options on all exchanges are around $6.3 billion.

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This brings the total number of crypto options expiring to around $2.1 billion in the small expiration event this week.

Spot Market Outlook

Total spending was at a daily low of $2.37 trillion during Friday morning trading in Asia. Markets were looking for a recovery until President Trump signed off on another 2 to 3 weeks of airstrikes on Iran, which spooked investors, leading to another selloff. Bitcoin reached $67,000 in late trading on Thursday but was unable to hold it, falling back to $66,600 at the time of writing.

“The level of provision for profit and loss is now reaching normal bear market levels,” noted CryptoQuant analyst ‘Darkfost.’

Ether prices have been weak all week, falling back to $2,000 yesterday, and trading at $2,050 on Friday morning. Additional reminders that most altcoins are in bearish territory and are not necessarily worth it.

The analyst ‘Daan Crypto Trades’ said that Bitcoin still did not make a new low during this conflict, since the previous low at $ 60,000 has not been retested since now.

“So, where the crypto sold alone from October to February, it has been stable so far during this conflict.”