Will Crypto Markets See New Peaks as $3.7B Bitcoin Options Expire Today?

Approximately 48,700 Bitcoin options contracts are expiring on Friday, Nov. 8, with a notional value of around $3.7 billion.

Today’s options expiry is much larger than last week’s following a period of increased volumes and volatility on markets, which have been boosted by Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States and the premise of a clearer regulatory environment.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s big batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.72, meaning that there are more long (calls) than short (puts) contract expiries. Additionally, open interest (OI), or the value or number of open options contracts yet to expire, is highest at the $80,000 strike price with $1.7 billion in OI, according to Deribit.

Crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live commented that the election market is rapidly cooling off, and despite strong gains in both Bitcoin and Ethereum and optimistic sentiment in the industry, “the options market is closing out profit taking in a noticeable way to end the election game.”

“BTC doomsday options have fallen below 50%, and IVs [implied volatility] are down significantly across all major terms, with ETH benefiting from today’s big gains and falling back less than BTC.”

Bitcoin OI by expiration. Source: Deribit

In addition to today’s Bitcoin options, there are around 294,000 Ethereum options contracts ready to expire with a put/call ratio of 0.65 and a notional value of $850 million. This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $4.5 billion.

Bitcoin Hits Another ATH, ETH Surging

Crypto market momentum has continued in the wake of Wednesday’s US election results. Total capitalization is currently at $2.67 trillion, its highest for five months.

Bitcoin tapped another new all-time high of $76,872 during late trading on Nov. 7, as the Federal Reserve cut rates by another 0.25%, according to CoinGecko. This brings its total gains to almost 22% over the past 30 days.

Ethereum is also finally on the move, tapping an intraday high of $2,950 during early trading in Asia on Friday morning. The asset, which has been plagued by FUD recently, has made an impressive 15% over the past week.

Most of the altcoins are cooling after recent rallies, but Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) are leading them with 5% and 14% daily gains, respectively.