The Big Picture: $525 Million on the Line

On November 13, a staggering $525 million in Bitcoin options is set to expire. Now, before you start thinking this sounds like a huge lottery win (or loss), hold your horses! This situation mirrors last week’s own $470 million expiry. Quite the drama for the cryptocurrency aficionados, wouldn’t you say? But here’s the kicker: typically, the majority of the options volume is chugging along through monthly and quarterly contracts. So, what’s going on here?

The Call and Put Situation

Let’s break down the call and put sensations from November 5. Hold onto your hats, folks! As it stands, put options (the ones that give sellers the chance to pounce at some point) had an open interest 30% larger than call options (the popular buys). Among the suspects: Deribit leads with $431 million on the line for this Friday’s expiry, followed by Bit.com with $72 million. Who knew options could get this spicy?

Understanding the Bullish vs. Bearish Debate

Before throwing around terms like bullish or bearish, let’s dig a little deeper. Picture an $18,000 call option holder. With less than 32 hours till expiry, making the Bitcoin price jump to $16,500 seems about as likely as a snowball surviving in hell. These options are toast, rendering them essentially worthless. Similar sentiments apply to put options that plunge down to $14,000. By filtering out the noise—like call options over $16,700 and put options below $14,400—you can catch a more accurate glimpse of market reality.

Current Open Interest Breakdown

Now let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Deribit is holding 5,915 BTC in call options ranging from $14,000 to $15,750. On the flip side, Bit.com shows off 1,050 BTC, while OKEx adds its own 490 BTC. This gives us a solid base of about $117 million in open interest backing up current price levels.

On the put side, options lying between $15,250 and $16,500 amount to 2,130 BTC at Deribit, 860 BTC at Bit.com, and another 100 BTC at OKEx. Talk about a party on both sides! This translates to about $48 million in immediate sell-side pressure from those puts.

The Dissonance: Why It Matters

So why the difference in options value? A lot of those poor put options have been depreciated to the point of being little more than sentimental fragments. Notably, this sentiment cuts out a whopping 84% of the total $298 million put options open interest. Just like that, the situation flips to reveal $69 million more backing the buy side!

As the market hovers near $15,500, those short-term options manage to keep it grounded and support a bounce-back above this crucial level. Be sure to mark your calendars: OKEx, Bit.com, and Deribit’s contracts wrap up at 8:00 AM UTC on November 13.