While there is always a reason behind every single movement in the market, Bitcoin’s latest bearish trend in the last 24 hours appears to be a result of $1.8 billion Bitcoin options set to expire today. This large volume of Bitcoin set to be expired later today is projected to impact the asset’s price movement significantly.
Similar to cryptocurrency futures contracts, options are derivatives that allow traders to buy or sell an asset at a pre-established price on a future date. Bitcoin options is an agreement that allows traders to buy or sell Bitcoin at a certain price, at a specific expiry date. Bitcoin options give traders the leverage to take speculative positions (i.e., upward or downward) on BTC’s price movement.
More Than $1 Billion Bitcoin Options To Expire
According to reporter Collin Wu, as of today, roughly $1.8 billion in Bitcoin options will be expired. This large volume of expired BTC could impact the price movement of Bitcoin significantly, for instance, the bearish trend BTC has shown over the past 24 hours.
Furthermore, as the Open Interest (OI) is above the 300,000 BTC mark, the highest in history, there are possibilities of a certain plummet from BTC. Open interest is the number of contracts or commitments outstanding in options trading yet to be settled on an official exchange.
Wu noted the put/call ratio is 0.66 and the biggest pain point is $22,000, which means buy and sell positions are well positioned. Overall, a put/call ratio greater than 0.7 indicates that traders are filling their put (short) positions more than their call (long) positions, which signifies a gearing bearish movement from the market.
A put option is an option to sell assets at an agreed price on or before a particular date. In contrast, a call option is a contract that allows traders to buy assets at an agreed price on or before a given date.
Notably, the put/call ratio is calculated by dividing the total amount of traded puts by the number of call trades. A put/call ratio that reads 1 signifies a balanced number of both callers and putters.
BTC Slips Below $24,000
Over the past 24 hours, BTC’s price has fallen sharply below the $24,000 mark down by 2.2%. More than $10 billion has been subtracted from its market cap after a fall from $471 billion seen yesterday to $461 billion as of today.
According to Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, the last major Bitcoin options expiry happened in late December when roughly 103,000 contracts expired. Though this volume is relatively low to that set to expire today, it resulted in a slight fall from BTC given it was already at the bottom following the FTX crash and the Binance FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).
However, since BTC has been in an upward rally since the beginning of the year, up by over 40%, there could be a significant plummet from the asset after the BTC options for today must have been liquidated.
Meanwhile, at the time of writing, BTC has a trading price of $23,889 with a 24-hour trading volume of $39.8 billion.
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