In fact, $630 million Bitcoin Options is not a big figure but in the current market situation, when the Bitcoin price has dropped below $30,000, will this create more selling pressure on BTC?
July 21 is the expiration date for Bitcoin Options contracts. This batch has a max pain point of $30,250, which is slightly higher than the current spot price. Today’s expiring batch of BTC Options has a put/call ratio of 0.41 and it’s still growing. In theory, values below 1 mean there are more call contracts, indicating bullish sentiment in the market.
July 28 will see a much larger options expiry with open interest (OI) above 60,000. OI is the number of unresolved contracts. According to GreeksLive, the market is generally negative this week, with selling July calls virtually monopolizing market volume. Options data seems to show that the uptrend is unsustainable. Existing market participants are not optimistic about the next rise, but there is no incentive to short futures. Then, selling calls became the only option.
Around 180,000 Ethereum options contracts will also expire today. These contracts have a nominal value of $340 million and a max pain point of $1,900. The put/call ratio for ETH contracts is 0.43, similar to the Bitcoin Options. This simply means that more than twice as many call contracts are being sold than puts.
Bitcoin has been unable to sustain above $30,000 and is down 1% on the day. As a result, BTC has dropped to $29,791 at the time of writing. Since the rally under the impact of the Ripple-SEC lawsuit last Friday, BTC has lost 5% and seems to be showing signs of falling. Ethereum is no better, with a similar daily drop to $1,891 at press time.
