Impending Bitcoin Price Plunge? Today Marks the Expiry of 1.8 Billion Dollars in BTC Options

Crypto News- This week has been quite a rollercoaster ride for Bitcoin and the broader crypto markets. Bitcoin experienced a sharp drop to $61,500 on March 20, only to claw back some ground afterward.

Today, all eyes are on the big options expiry event, which could inject further volatility into the already turbulent markets. Approximately 25,300 Bitcoin contracts are set to expire on March 22, adding to the market’s jitteriness.

Impending Bitcoin Price Plunge? Today Marks the Expiry of 1.8 Billion Dollars in BTC Options

While this week’s expiry event is slightly smaller in scale compared to last week’s, a massive expiry worth nearly $10 billion is looming at the month’s end.

The current tranche of expiring Bitcoin derivatives represents a notional value of $1.8 billion. Notably, the put/call ratio for these BTC options stands at 0.57, indicating that there are almost twice as many long contracts being traded compared to short ones.

Deribit reports that there’s nearly $1 billion in open interest at the $65,000 strike price, with other significant open interest strike prices including $60K, $70K, and $75K.

Greeks Live, a crypto derivatives tooling provider, highlighted the market’s response to the Federal Reserve’s lack of interest rate adjustments. BTC has managed to recover all previous session losses, with both realized and implied volatility remaining high. This suggests a balanced dynamic between long and short forces, with the bullish sentiment still intact.

Cryptocurrency Market Sees Red Once Again as Prices Dip

In addition to Bitcoin options, approximately 253,000 Ethereum contracts are also set to expire today, with a notional value of $885 million and a put/call ratio of 0.51. The highest open interest for Ethereum is at the $4,000 strike price, followed closely by $3,000.

As the markets brace for the expiry event, total market capitalization has retreated by 2.5%, now standing at $2.6 trillion as the correction trend continues. Bitcoin is trading at $66,218, down nearly 1.4%, while Ethereum sits at $3,515, marking a 0.5% decrease during the Friday morning Asian trading session.

Amidst the sea of red, Binance Coin (BNB) and XRP have managed to eke out marginal gains, providing some relief to investors amidst the market turbulence.