Cryptocurrency markets and bitcoin price stability might be coming to an end soon, as a number of skeptics and speculators expect a big move after today’s options derivatives contracts expire. Bitcoin prices have been less volatile during the last three weeks, but over 114,000 bitcoin options with a notional value over $1 billion set to expire on Friday, June 26, could change that trend.
Traders are eying bitcoin (BTC) derivatives contracts that are set to expire at the end of the trading day. At the time of writing, BTC is swapping for $9,249 per unit and has a $170 billion market valuation. The entire market capitalization of all 5,000+ crypto assets is around $263 billion on Friday morning.
This week, traders and crypto market analysts have been focused on watching the options contracts set to end today. The researchers from Arcane Research recently published a report and discussed the bitcoin options issue.
“Close to $1 billion bitcoin options contracts will expire on Jun 26, accounting for 60% of the total open interest in the BTC options market,” Arcane’s report noted. “In situations like this, there could be significant financial incentives to move the spot price towards a certain level before the expiry date.”
The options expiry of over $1 billion in notional value is the largest expiration of its kind and a number of traders believe that it will trigger a big move. Data from Skew’s analytics show that between Deribit, Bakkt, Okex, CME, and Ledgerx there is well over $1.8 billion in open interest for options.
Deribit is the largest provider of options, while the regulated institutional exchange CME has the second largest number of contracts.
Traders also have noticed a $7-8k-strike price, while a number of other speculators also see a $10-11k-strike price. Most traders believe that the ‘big move’ will end up being in range of either one of these two price trends.
Traders have been discussing the options expiry all week, and have been theorizing on whether or not it will shake crypto markets.
“In case you missed it, $930,000,000 worth of bitcoin options are expiring on Friday – almost 70% of all total open interest. Seems normal,” explained one individual on Twitter.
Another trader called Altcoin Psycho also discussed the big expiry expected today. “Everyone is expecting huge BTC volatility because of options expiry tomorrow, but let’s dig into that,” Altcoin Psycho tweeted to his 35,000 Twitter followers.
“Heaviest volume is for calls at $10k and puts at $9k. The max pain scenario would be bitcoin simply ranging sideways. I think this is what will happen.” “I’ve become a max pain/game theory maximalist as of late,” the trader added.
What do you think about the large bitcoin options expiry today? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Skew.com
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