Bitcoin’s month-end options expiry is just around the corner. At 8:00 AM UTC tomorrow, BTC worth $1.14 billion will expire. Data from Coinglass revealed that traders remained divided, with only a marginal difference between the bullish and bearish bets.
The call OI at press time for November 25th’s expiry stood at 36,465.67 BTC. The put OI, on the other hand, stood at 32,520.2 BTC. Resultantly, the call/put ratio stood above 1 [at 1.12, to be precise]. Clearly, the bulls have a slight upper hand at the moment, contrary to last week’s expiry scenario.
Strike price-wise breakdown
The $16k, $17k, and $18k psychological levels seemed to be the most attractive ones to traders. At exactly 16k, call OI stood at 1.06k BTC, while put OI stood at 3.3k BTC, favoring bears.
However, at 16.5k—the price around which BTC is currently hovering—calls overshadowed the puts [1.72k BTC versus 979.1 BTC].
Usually, most bearish bets are been placed at lower strike prices, while bullish bets are concentrated toward upside targets. This time, nonetheless, the state of affairs seems to be slightly different. As illustrated below, at a $17k strike price, the bearish bets placed were fairly higher than the bullish bets.
So ideally, at the time of expiry, if Bitcoin hovers around $16.5k, the damage done would be minimal because calls have an upper hand. On the contrary, if Bitcoin trades at $16k or $17k, it will likely succumb to the pressure included by the put traders after that and register a retracement.
At $18k, the number of calls and puts was almost equal [2.67k BTC versus 2.38k BTC]. So, the expiry might turn out to be a non-event if the price remains at the said level, for the at-par bullish-bearish bets will end up nullifying each other. The said scenario materializing seems to be unlikely because the market is currently underbought.
Nevertheless, over the next couple of trading sessions, if Bitcoin manages to rise up by a few hundred dollars to $17k, it’d be likely sent down because it faces strong resistance there. Thus, the odds of the largest crypto hovering around the ‘ideal’ price [$16.5k] at the time of expiry seem to be fairly good at the moment.
