Bitcoin’s Billion-Dollar Gamble: Will the Bears Feast or Flee? 🤡📉

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On this crisp October Friday, a veritable circus of 44,000 Bitcoin options contracts shall expire, their collective notional value pirouetting at a dizzying $4.8 billion-enough to make even the most jaded Wall Street gargoyle raise a speculative eyebrow.

This week’s expiry performance is marginally grander than last week’s forgettable matinee, though spot markets-currently engaged in their own tragicomic descent-are unlikely to notice. Meanwhile, the U.S. government, ever the theatrical troupe, remains shuttered, and trade tariffs loom like a poorly rehearsed deus ex machina. Yet, the grand narrative of quantitative tightening’s demise and liquidity’s triumphant return whispers sweet bullish nothings to crypto’s eager ears.

The Great Bitcoin Options Spectacle

This week’s put/call ratio-a modest 0.83-reveals a slight preponderance of bullish contracts expiring, though the bears, ever the opportunists, have seized the stage. Max pain, that delightful financial masochism, hovers near $116,000, according to Coinglass, while open interest flirts shamelessly with $140,000, where Deribit reports a staggering $2.2 billion in unresolved contracts.

Short sellers, those puckish villains, have scribbled their ambitions at $110k, $108k, and even $95k, each strike price adorned with over $1.3 billion in open interest. The total BTC options OI across exchanges? A cool $61 billion-nearly an all-time high, as if the market were determined to outdo itself in sheer absurdity.

“Skew across maturities has plunged into the abyss of negativity, as demand for downside protection rises like a chorus of nervous opera singers.”

“BTC options flow now favors puts over calls-a shift as subtle as a sledgehammer to the kneecap.”

– Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) October 16, 2025

Greeks Live, ever the diligent chronicler of derivatives melodrama, noted on Thursday that bearish trades have surged with the enthusiasm of a mob storming a discount bakery.

“Over $1.15 billion-roughly 28% of total options volume-has cascaded into shallow out-of-the-money puts expiring this week, with the $10,400 to $10,800 strike range serving as the main stage for this tragedy.”

“The ensemble remains cautiously bearish, though a few optimistic souls still lurk in the wings, whispering of potential rebounds near lower support levels,” the report added, with all the conviction of a fortune teller reading tea leaves.

Not to be outdone, Ethereum has its own expiry drama: 251,000 contracts, a notional $985 million, max pain at $4,100, and a put/call ratio of 0.81. Total ETH options OI? A mere $15.4 billion. Combined, today’s crypto options expiry spectacle clocks in at $5.7 billion-enough to make even the most jaded trader pause mid-sip of their lukewarm coffee.

Spot Market: A Comedy of Errors

The week concludes with market capitalization bleeding 2.7% to $3.77 trillion-down nearly 14% since its October 7 peak. Bitcoin, ever the leading man, stumbled to $108,000 late Thursday, while Ethereum, ever the unreliable understudy, failed to hold $4,000, slinking back to $3,900.

The altcoins? A veritable clown car of losses-BNB, Solana, Dogecoin, Sui, and Avalanche tumbling like drunken acrobats in a particularly disastrous circus act.

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2025-10-17 07:47