What Good Friday Options Expiry Means for Bitcoin & Ethereum

On Good Friday, over $2.2 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum options contracts expire today.

It comes as crypto markets continue to reel from macroeconomic uncertainty. President Donald Trump is pressuring the Federal Reserve (Fed) to cut interest rates, but the chair, Jerome Powell, will not budge.

Over $2.2 Billion Options Expire Today

Today, April 18, amid Good Friday celebrations, 23,221 Bitcoin (BTC) options contracts will expire. The notional value for this Friday’s tranche of expiring Bitcoin options contracts is $1.966 billion, according to data on Deribit.

The put/call ratio is 0.96, suggesting a prevalence of purchase options (calls) over sales options (puts).

As the Bitcoin options expire, they have a maximum pain or strike price of $82,000; at this point, the asset will cause the greatest number of holders’ financial losses.

Similarly, crypto markets will witness the expiry of 177,130 Ethereum contracts, with a notional value of $279.789 million. The put-to-call ratio for these expiring Ethereum options is 0.84, with a maximum pain of $1,600.

This week’s options expiry event is slightly smaller than what crypto markets witnessed last week on Friday. As BeInCrypto reported, approximately $2.5 billion worth of BTC and ETH options expired then, with short-term dips bringing put demand.

Traders and investors must closely monitor today’s developments as options expiry could lead to price volatility. Nevertheless, put-to-call ratios below 1 for Bitcoin and Ethereum in options trading indicate optimism in the market. It suggests that more traders are betting on price increases.

Meanwhile, analysts at Deribit highlight low volatility and flat skew. While this suggests a calm market, historical data from CoinGlass suggests post-expiry price swings are common, potentially signaling an upcoming move.

“With volatility crushed and skew flat, is the market setting up for a post-expiry move?” they posed.

Blackswan Event Likely, Greeks.live Analysts Say

Analysts at Greeks.live shed light on current market sentiment, echoing the calm outlook. However, they note that the market is predominantly bearish to neutral. Traders expect continued choppy action before potentially revisiting $80,000 to $82,000.

As of this writing, Bitcoin was trading for $84,648, slightly above its strike price of $82,000. Based on the Max Pain theory, prices will likely move toward this strike price as options near expiry.

Citing a mild sentiment, Greek.live analysts ascribe the calm to Trump not putting out a lot of news this week. Nevertheless, they anticipate more trade wars, heightened uncertainty, and volatility.

“We expect the trade and tariff wars to be far from over, and the uncertainty in the market will continue for a long time, as will the volatility in the market,” Greeks.live wrote.

They also ascribe the outlook to Powell’s comments, which created downward pressure as 100 bps rate cut expectations for the year were reduced. This led to crypto correlation with traditional markets.

Against this backdrop, Greeks.live says the probability of a black swan event is higher, where a rare, unexpected event that has a significant and often disruptive impact on the market occurs.

“…it is now a period of pain when the bulls have completely turned to bears, and investor sentiment is relatively low. In this worse market of bulls turning to bears, the probability of a black swan will be significantly higher,” they explained.

They urge traders to buy out-of-the-money (OTM) put options. An option is classified as out-of-the-money when its strike price is less favorable than the current market price of the underlying asset. This means it has no intrinsic value, only time value (the potential for it to become valuable before expiration).