Some 135,000 BTC in options contracts, worth $10.9 billion, are set to expire on Deribit at 8 AM UTC today, October 30.
With this expiry being quite large and coming right at the end of the month, it’s not beyond reason to think it could affect volatility in the spot market.
Max Pain Sits Below Bitcoin’s Current Price
Data shared by the unfolded account on X showed the put/call ratio at 0.53, meaning calls outnumber puts by nearly two to one.
Meanwhile, max pain, the price at which the most option buyers would lose money and sellers come out ahead, is at $78,000, which is around the same level as the current spot price.
Bitcoin went as far as $81,700 earlier in the week after the Federal Reserve decided to hold rates following September’s hike, although it later slid to around $80,500. At the time of writing, the OG crypto was changing hands just above $78,000 per CoinGecko, having crashed earlier to the $76,000 level following a $6.3 billion hack on Binance. It is down 6% across the last month to put it about 38% below its all-time high of over $126,000.
Unfolded shared a chart in their post showing the largest call positions stacked up at the $95,000 and $100,000 strike prices, which is well above the market, while puts were clustered lower, peaking between $70,000 and $75,000.
In addition to today’s huge batch of BTC options, Ethereum contracts with a notional value of $776 million will also be expiring, with max pain at $2,500 and a put/call ratio of 0.77. This brings the total notional value of the expiring crypto options to $11.67 billion, which makes for quite a substantial event.
The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading near $2,200, some way below the max pain level. According to CG, that price represents a 16% dip from where it was 30 days ago and a 43% plunge in the span of one year.
Short-Term Hedges Give Way to Longer-Term Calls
Commenting on the event, market watcher Dennis Liu said he had found heavier put buying than call buying for the next expiry after today’s, set for November 6, which will be midterm week, with downside protection costing more than comparable upside bets. That suggests some traders are paying a premium to protect against losses.
The analyst placed the expected trading range for today’s expiry between $77,600 and $82,400, with that for November 6 widening to $75,200 to $85,100. He also pointed to a more optimistic outlook further ahead, with 1.7 calls for every put for November 27 and 1.5 for December 25.
“I’m not expecting a weekly close below 75K,” Liu wrote. “If we get a midterm drawdown, that’s the downside risk I’m willing to swallow. If there’s no drawdown at all, maybe we stop at 78K and just go up.”
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