Bitcoin futures options worth over $1.5 billion are set to expire on April 12, which could potentially lead to downside price volatility and a drop in Bitcoin’s value to around $69,000. The put-to-call ratio for these options is 0.62, suggesting a “max pain” point for Bitcoin at $69,000, as stated in a post by pseudonymous trader Greeks on April 12. However, Hao Yang, the global head of derivatives trading at Bybit exchange, believes that Bitcoin may not necessarily fall back to its previous all-time high. While periods close to options expiration often see increased price volatility in the crypto markets, Yang doesn’t expect significant volatility due to the relatively small size of the options set to expire on Friday. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $70,725 with a 5.9% increase on the weekly chart. According to Andrey Stoychev, the head of Prime Brokerage at Nexo, Bitcoin may still experience increased downside price volatility due to external macroeconomic factors, but not necessarily because of the upcoming options expiry. The recent U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for March, which came in slightly higher than expected at 3.5% year-on-year, prompted Bitcoin whales to buy the dip and push the price back above $70,000. Inflows from spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. have slowed ahead of the Bitcoin halving, generating $220 million worth of net inflows in the past week. This is a significant decrease from the best week on March 11, when net inflows reached $2.58 billion. The total on-chain holdings of Bitcoin ETFs currently stand at over 839,000 BTC, representing 4.26% of the total BTC supply.
$1.5B Bitcoin options expiry establishes $69K maximum pain price.