{"id":92625,"date":"2025-12-25T10:41:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T07:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=92625"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:56:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:56:01","slug":"bitcoin-100000-bet-falters-ahead-of-options-expiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bitcoin-100000-bet-falters-ahead-of-options-expiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin $100,000 Bet Falters Ahead of Options Expiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the year-end expiry of $28.5bn of contracts on Deribit, traders\u2019 optimism is ebbing. A large block of call options worth $21.7bn is at risk of expiring worthless.<\/p>\n

Investors had bet that bitcoin would hold above $100,000, but November\u2019s price action failed to deliver. According to the venue, only 6% of open interest has a strike at $92,000 or below \u2014 the rest sits far from the spot price.<\/p>\n

\"bitcoin
Source: Deribit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is also a heavy concentration between $100,000 and $125,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u201cmax pain\u201d level stands at $95,000 \u2014 the point at which holders would suffer the greatest losses.<\/p>\n

A glimmer of hope<\/h2>\n

Bullish sentiment is underpinned by expectations of further easing of macroeconomic policy in the US. Over the past week traders added call open interest with $90,000\u2013120,000 strikes expiring at year-end.<\/p>\n

Bearish positions are vulnerable too. A large share of put strikes is clustered between $75,000 and $86,000. If bitcoin holds above $88,000 into expiry, more than half of these contracts worth $7.7bn would expire worthless.<\/p>\n

\"bitcoin
Source: Deribit.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the price remains below $94,000, sellers retain the upper hand. At the time of writing the asset trades around $87,800.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"bitcoin
Hourly BTC\/USDT chart on Binance. Source: TradingView<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ethereum<\/h2>\n

On 26 December, options on the second-largest cryptocurrency worth $3.7bn will also expire. Bullish bets outnumber bearish ones two to one.<\/p>\n

Most call options risk becoming worthless \u2014 traders had positioned for an Ethereum rally to $3,500\u20135,000 by year-end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ethereum
Source: Deribit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fewer than 15% of such bullish wagers sit at a more realistic $3,000 or below \u2014 which is also the \u201cmax pain\u201d level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bears, meanwhile, are looking for a drop into the $2,000\u20132,500 area, where most puts are concentrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ethereum
Source: Deribit.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here, too, the balance of power favours sellers while Ethereum stays below $3,200. At the time of writing the coin trades around $2,900.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ETH
Hourly ETH\/USDT chart on Binance. Source: TradingView<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier, Wintermute analysts noted<\/a> the concentration of capital in bitcoin and Ethereum.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the year-end expiry of $28.5bn of contracts on Deribit, traders\u2019 optimism is fading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Traders' optimism fades ahead of Deribit's $28.5bn year-end options expiry.","creation_source":"ai_translated","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[480,1409,46],"class_list":["post-92625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-deribit","tag-ethereum"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"467","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Traders' optimism fades ahead of Deribit's $28.5bn year-end options expiry.","is_update":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92637,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92625\/revisions\/92637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}