Bitcoin Faces $16 Billion Options Expiry and Two More Tests This Week
Bitcoin faces three major tests on Friday as it heads into a $16 billion options expiry at Deribit, followed by US durable goods orders and CME's September Bitcoin futures settlement. Ledn co-founder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo sees this as the second half of an expiry cycle that began on Wall Street.
The quarterly expirations are described as a two-act event, with options on BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust having expired last week in IBIT's largest single expiration on record. The book was heavily tilted toward calls, which pushed many into the money after Bitcoin's rally through $80,000.
This demand then reached Bitcoin itself once it grew large enough to require new IBIT shares, pulling spot Bitcoin into the fund through authorized participants, according to Di Bartolomeo. He expects the Deribit book to inherit the same setup and noted that calls make up about 60% of Friday's expiring open interest.