Will Crypto Markets Continue to Surge Amid $1.26B Bitcoin Options Expiring 

Around 18,500 Bitcoin options contracts are expiring on Friday, Oct. 18, with a notional value of around $1.26 billion.

Today’s options expiry is very similar to last week’s, with declining volatility resulting in smaller expiry events. For this reason, the impact on spot markets is likely to be minimal.

However, there is a large $4 billion Bitcoin options expiry event on the last Friday of this month.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s tranche of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.86. This means that there are slightly more long (call) contracts expiring than shorts (puts).

Additionally, open interest (OI), or the value or number of open options contracts yet to expire, is still high at the strike price of $70,000, with over a billion dollars at that price, according to Deribit. OI is also over $1 billion at the $100,000 strike price, suggesting the derivatives bulls are getting confident again.

BTC OI by expiry. Source: Deribit

Analyst James Check observed that there was a new high in Bitcoin futures OI. He added that this means two things, high leverage means a higher likelihood of volatile shake-outs, but the bigger Bitcoin gets, the bigger this metric will be simply as a matter of scale.

New ATH in #Bitcoin futures open interest.

Two things:
1) High leverage means higher likelihood of volatile shake-outs.
2) The bigger Bitcoin gets, the bigger this metric will be simply as a matter of scale.

If you’re long spot, be patient, & don’t FOMO
Pullbacks will happen pic.twitter.com/7MoS6edDRV

— _Checkmate ⚡☢️️ (@_Checkmatey_) October 17, 2024

In addition to today’s Bitcoin options, there are 137,000 Ethereum options that are about to expire with a put/call ratio of 0.62 and a notional value of $367 million. This brings Friday’s crypto options expiry to just over $1.6 billion for the week.

Crypto Market Outlook

Total market capitalization has declined slightly today to $2.42 trillion despite Bitcoin hitting a ten-week high.

The asset spiked to $68,159 during the Friday morning Asian trading session, building on momentum that has seen the asset gain almost 12% since the same time last week.

BTC has not been at this price level since late July, which has led analysts to speculate that a breakout is imminent following the higher high.

However, until BTC tops its mid-March all-time high, it remains range-bound and could pull back over the weekend as profits are taken. Analysts were confident that the accumulation period could be coming to an end.

I think any targets for BTC that you had for this cycle should be adjusted higher now after 6 months of consolidation at prior ATHs. Lots of supply has changed hands, presumably now in the possession of those targeting much higher.

— Will (@WClementeIII) October 18, 2024

The altcoins are falling back today with FUD-stricken Ethereum getting rejected again at $2,650 and retreating towards the $2,600 level at the time of writing.

Most of the altcoins were in the red aside from Dogecoin (DOGE) which had made 6% on the day to reach $0.132.