Bitcoin Holds Firm Ahead of Record $18B Options Expiry

Bitcoin's price has held above $85,000 ahead of the settlement for options contracts worth approximately $18 billion on Friday. According to data from CoinBureau, the current options book shows roughly 184,000 contracts with a notional value of $15.9 billion. The majority of these contracts are calls, which outnumber puts by about 1.44 to 1.

The price of Bitcoin has climbed by around 14% since its max-pain level at $75,000, and it remains 6.8% above its 365-day moving average near $80,350. Ethereum's options positioning is also heavily weighted toward calls, with a put/call ratio of 0.61.

The unusually large options expiry arrives after a sharp round of leverage reduction, with liquidations totaling $278.06 million over the past 24 hours across 88,125 traders. This suggests that both short and long positions have been vulnerable to liquidation in recent days.