Friday's Bitcoin Options Expiry Is Put at $10.7B to $12B

Deribit's monthly bitcoin options settle at 08:00 UTC on Friday, two days after the Federal Reserve's October decision. How much is riding on them is in dispute. Five readings taken between Monday and Tuesday morning put the notional value at $10.7 billion, roughly $10.8 billion, nearly $11 billion, about $11.1 billion and $12 billion. One account blames the spread on different measurement dates. Bitcoin traded below $80,000 all Tuesday morning while the counting went on.

Five readings of one date

cryptoticker opened Deribit's own interface on Tuesday morning and counted 135,545 open contracts, one bitcoin each, worth roughly $10.8 billion at the price then showing. Calls account for 87,393 and puts for 48,152. Crypto Briefing, whose work this desk knows only through FinanceFeeds, gave a range of $10.7 billion to $11.3 billion. Bitget Wallet Research, quoted by Dow Jones early on Tuesday, said nearly $11 billion. FinanceFeeds headlined $12 billion while its own text put the figure between $11 billion and $12 billion across trackers.

So the ends of what is readable here are $10.7 billion and $12 billion. That gap is larger than a tenth of the smaller number, and no two accounts reconcile. September's quarterly settlement had the same problem, with trackers putting it between $14 billion and $16 billion. The date nobody disputes.

Where the pain is computed

Max pain is the price at which the holders of those options, taken together, would lose the most at settlement. cryptoticker computes $78,000 for Friday. FinanceFeeds says the estimates sit between $76,000 and $79,000, with one reported figure near $78,000 and another closer to $76,000. Both accounts say plainly that the level describes positioning and forecasts nothing. Bitcoin sat roughly 2% above $78,000 on Tuesday morning.

The detail beneath that is thinner. Crypto Briefing, again through FinanceFeeds, puts the ratio of put to call open interest between 0.40 and 0.51 and the largest strike concentration at the $95,000 call. One chain of reporting carries it, and nothing read here tests it.

Two decisions sit either side of it

The Federal Open Market Committee met on Tuesday and decides on Wednesday, with the announcement at 2:00 pm ET and the chair's press conference half an hour later. The target range is 3.75% to 4.00% after September's quarter-point increase. A hold is expected, though the probability is given three ways: 89.5% on the CME FedWatch tool by BeInCrypto's reading, just under 90% by Dow Jones, and 86% in market data cited by FinanceFeeds. BeInCrypto puts the odds of a December hike at 82.3%, with the odds of no change that month up from 7.3% a month ago to 17.7% now.

"With a Fed rate hold largely priced in and nearly $11 billion in Bitcoin options approaching expiry, markets face a test of policy expectations, spot demand and derivatives positioning," Bitget Wallet Research told Dow Jones.

No new quarterly economic projections are scheduled, CoinGape reports, which confirms a claim one account carried alone on Monday. The Bank of Japan decides on Friday, where a hold at 1.25% is expected after its own September increase. More than 80% of economists in a Bloomberg survey see its next move in December, by BeInCrypto's account alone.

The market underneath the date

Tuesday's price readings run close together and still differ. Dow Jones had bitcoin 0.4% lower at $79,652 at 07:19 UTC. cryptoticker gave $79,568 in the morning, after six falling daily closes and 8.0% below the monthly high. CoinGape, filing at 10:43 UTC, had $79,665, with ether around $2,310. US spot bitcoin funds took in $110.3 million on Monday, all through a single issuer's product, by CoinGape's count alone. Spot ether funds lost $88.6 million.

Lookonchain's weekly figures, which reach this desk through BeInCrypto, have the stablecoin market shrinking $2.19 billion in the week to 25 October. Thinner balances are the backdrop to Friday. Whatever the expiry is worth, roughly a third of Deribit's bitcoin open interest rolls off when it settles, and the next date of comparable size is the annual expiry on 25 December. The count that matters is the one taken after the contracts clear.