How Will Markets React to $2.6B Crypto Options Expiring Today?

Around 31,700 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Mar. 6, with a notional value of roughly $2.2 billion. This event is much smaller than last week’s, so there is unlikely to be any impact on spot markets.

Crypto markets have seen a little daylight this week, with around $150 billion added to total market capitalization since Monday, but things were starting to cool off again by Friday.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 1.7, meaning that there are more expiring shorts (puts) than longs (calls). Max pain is around $69,000, according to Coinglass, which is a little below current spot prices, so many could be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit as bearish bets remain dominant. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been climbing this month and has reached $41.7 billion.

Crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live observed the market rebound, noting that Bitcoin was firmly holding above the $70,000 psychological threshold and is “now poised to challenge $75,000.”

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 184,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $380 million, max pain at $1,950, and a put/call ratio of 0.85. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $7.5 billion.

This brings the total notional value of crypto options expiries to around $2.6 billion.

Spot Market Outlook

Total market cap is down 1.2% on the day to $2.49 trillion; however, it remains at the upper bounds of its month-long sideways channel.

Bitcoin hit a four-week high of $74,000 on Thursday but was halted there and has pulled back to $70,300 at the time of writing. The asset has seen a strong recovery since the war in Iran started last weekend.

Ether prices stalled at $2,200 and had declined 2% on the day back to $2,065 during the Friday morning Asian trading session. The altcoins were mostly flat on the day and have failed to move in tandem with the top two this week.

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