How Will Markets React as $10B in Crypto Options Expire Today?

Around 80,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Jan. 30, and they have a notional value of roughly $8.36 billion.

This week’s expiry event is a large one because it is the end of the month. However, crypto derivatives expiry events such as this rarely influence spot markets, which have remained relatively flat this week.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.68, which means that there are more call (long) contracts expiring than puts (shorts).

Moreover, open interest (OI), or the value or number of BTC options contracts yet to expire, is highest at the $120,000 strike price, which is $2.4 billion, according to Deribit.

There is also around $1.65 billion in OI at the $110,000 strike price, as derivatives traders continue to speculate that BTC prices will rise from current levels.

Earlier this week, crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live said the “longer-term outlook remains constructive with expectations of continued upward momentum.”

Meanwhile, Deribit reported that Bitcoin’s brief drop below $100,000 this week caused changes in the derivatives market. Short-term traders were buying more put options than usual, but longer-term traders remained optimistic, favoring call options, it stated.

Around 600,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring in addition to today’s tranche of Bitcoin options. These have a notional value of $1.95 billion and a put/call ratio of 0.43.

This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $10.3 billion.

Crypto Market Outlook

Total market capitalization has fallen just over 1% on the day to $3.68 trillion, where it was at the same time last week.

Bitcoin reached $106,000 in an intraday high on Thursday but started to retreat during the Friday morning Asian trading session, falling to $104,300 at the time of writing. It has recovered from a Monday dip into the five-figure territory but failed to gain further momentum this week.

Ethereum remains weak, having failed to reach $3,300 and trading at just over $3,200 at the time of writing.

The altcoins were generally mixed with minor gains and losses on Friday morning. Stellar (XLM), Sui (SUI), and Litecoin (LTC) were doing a little better than the rest.

Analysts have observed that February is usually much better for crypto price action than January, so things could be about to heat up.