As a seasoned analyst with over two decades of experience in the financial markets, I find myself intrigued by this upcoming Bitcoin options expiry event. With a notional value of $9.48 billion and a significant increase from the previous week’s expiry, it certainly catches my attention. The put/call ratio slightly favoring long contracts suggests a bullish sentiment among participants.
Around 98,500 Bitcoin option agreements are set to conclude on November 29th (Friday), marking a significant monthly expiration.
The current estimated worth is approximately $9.48 billion, which is over three times greater than what was reported for last week’s expiration. Yet, it seems probable that this value will be surpassed by the climactic year-end event scheduled for the end of December.
Bitcoin Options Expiry
This week’s batch of Bitcoin options is showing a higher number of call (long) contracts compared to put (short) contracts, with a ratio of approximately 0.84:1 in favor of calls.
As reported by Deribit, the open interest, which refers to the total number or value of option contracts that have not yet expired, reaches its peak at the $100,000 strike price, with an outstanding balance of approximately $2 billion.
On November 26th, a significant amount of large Bitcoin options transactions, totalling over $120 million, were recorded by crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live within the options market.
“The giant whales are on the move, and a big market is likely just around the corner,” it added.
According to Deribit’s latest report, the actual volatility of Bitcoin (BTC) has decreased to around 50, whereas Ethereum (ETH) remains more volatile at approximately 70. The anticipated volatility for Bitcoin is steady, but it’s rising for Ethereum.
Beyond the Bitcoin options maturing today, approximately 412,000 Ethereum contracts are also due to expire. The total value of these contracts is estimated at about $1.47 billion, and the put/call ratio stands at 0.74. This means that there are more call options (buy) than put options (sell), by a factor of 3 to 2. As a result, the cumulative notional value of all crypto options expiring today is roughly $11 billion.
Crypto Market Outlook
Over the last day, the total value of all cryptocurrencies (market capitalization) has stayed roughly steady at approximately $3.5 trillion, just shy of its record high. In the month of November alone, nearly a trillion dollars has flowed into the crypto market.
During the Friday morning Asian trading session, Bitcoin initially dropped to approximately $94,700 before quickly recovering by around $2,000, bringing its price up to $96,700. Over the past week or so, this cryptocurrency has been holding steady at this level, suggesting consolidation.
We got a 11% pullback on $BTC and people are literally saying the end is imminent.
It was literally less than 10 days ago when the same people were asking for a pullback to buy.
Now they are saying “I’ll wait for lower”.
Ok.
— Greeks.live (@GreeksLive) November 28, 2024
Ethereum has largely held on to gains and was trading just below $3,600 at the time of writing.
At the point of writing, XRP saw a positive trend, rising by 7% to hit $1.57, while Cardano (ADA) also increased by 5%, touching $1.05. On the whole, various altcoins were experiencing growth this Friday as markets continued to exhibit resilience, even amidst a slight dip.
