Ahead of the $9.83 billion in options expiry, Bitcoin (BTC) has slipped below the $105,000 price mark, dipping as low as $104,802 during early Asian trading hours.
As per market data from Deribit, approximately 92,501 BTC options are set to expire today with a Put/Call Ratio of 0.89, signaling a slightly bullish market sentiment. From the total options set to expire today, 48,880 are call options and 43,620 are put options, combining a notional value of $9.825 billion.
The Max Pain Price, the price mark at which option traders will face the most loss, is pegged at the $100,000 mark. Currently, Bitcoin is trading above its max pain level, but the gap has sparked speculation of downward pressure as sellers might push BTC price down towards the Max Pain Price to maximize profits.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading near $106,105—down 1.44% in the past 24 hours. Its 24 hour trading volume currently sits at $58.37 billion, an increase of 15.45% today. After breaking to an all-time high of $111,970 last week on May 22, the Bitcoin price is currently down 5.22% from that level.
While Bitcoin was facing a notable selling pressure in the past few days, this mammoth options expiry has given another push to its downward trajectory.
In times like this, when such a massive amount of options expire, the crypto market usually turns much more volatile as loss-making traders attempt to minimize their loss while profitable traders push market prices to unlock higher profits. These are also times when seasoned traders capitalize on predictable price movements and extract huge profits out of it.
Besides 92,500 Bitcoin options, nearly 624,000 Ethereum (ETH) options worth $1.64 billion are also set to expire today on 30 May, at a Put/Call Ratio of 0.81. This marks by far one of the largest crypto options expiring in the past few months, with Bitcoin and Ethereum options’ notional value totaling nearly $11.5 billion.
Also read: Hyper Liquid Trader Loses $99M as Bitcoin Falls Below $105K
