Bitcoin, Ethereum Contracts Worth $2.7B Poised to Lapse

Deribit reports a $2.7B Bitcoin and Ethereum options expiry on May 24, revealing market sentiment. A larger $4.3B options expiry follows on May 31.

The May 24 expiration of almost $2.7 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options will reveal important information about the mood of the cryptocurrency market.

A post on X by Greeks Live states that there are 21,000 Bitcoin BTC$67,415 options with an expiration date of May 1 and a put/call ratio of 0.88. This suggests that buyers and sellers are roughly evenly balanced, with a preference for call options.

The price at which most option buyers would experience losses, or the maximum pain point, is $67,000, or a nominal value of $1.4 billion.

The impending 21,000 contract expiry is noteworthy, but it is nothing compared to the much more significant event that will take place on May 31, when an incredible $4.3 billion worth of options is scheduled to expire, as reported by Debbie.

Deribit statistics show that long positions, with a significant $830 million link to the $70,000 strike price, control the majority of open interest (OI).

Furthermore, higher strike prices also have notable OI—$843 million at the $100,000 level, for example—which suggests that traders are inclined toward bullishness. The $60,000 strike price for the put contract is the most notable, with $388 million in open interest.

Because open interest (OI) represents the unresolved value of contracts waiting to be settled, this significant OI suggests that many contracts remain unsettled and shows that bulls are confident of substantially higher Bitcoin prices.

Not just Bitcoin is involved in the option expiry event; a noteworthy 350,000 Ethereum.

ETH $3,702 contracts with a notional value of $1.3 billion are expiring. The put/call ratio of 0.58 and the maximum pain point of $3,200 show that more call options expire than put options, indicating a slightly bullish tone.

Ethereum recently took the lead in the cryptocurrency boom, spurred on by the growth of ETFs, according to a report from Greeks Live. It rose by 20% in a single day. At one time, short-term options’ implied volatility (IV) hit 150%, which is a substantial increase over Bitcoin’s current IV for the same period.

But it’s clear now how different Bitcoin and Ethereum are. Although there is still a lot of optimism surrounding Ethereum, keeping the IV levels of each primary term high is problematic when considering market structure and overall trading.

This implies that using calendar spreads might be a wiser decision. Conversely, Bitcoin is more evenly distributed between long and short positions, with higher call factors for selling.