The crypto market moved variably today (10/23/2024) with a tendency to weaken ahead of the moment when the monthly bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) option contracts will expire on Friday this week.
Referring to CoinMarketCap on Wednesday (10/23/2024) at 06:27 WIB, the crypto market tends to be varied. Bitcoin rose slightly by 0.06% to US$67,540.08 and was in the positive zone of 1.23% weekly.
Ethereum depreciated 1.62% in the last 24 hours while in the week it strengthened 1.25%.
BNB slipped 1.01% on a daily basis while it rose 0.24% over the week.
Likewise, XRP slipped 2.06% in the last 24 hours and in the last seven days depreciated 0.99%.
The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI), a market cap-weighted index for digital asset markets, fell 0.26% to 2,479.81. Open interest depreciated 1.01% to $72.68 billion.
Meanwhile, the fear & greed index reported by coinmarketcap.com shows a figure of 57, indicating that the market is in a neutral phase with the current economic and crypto industry conditions.
Quoted from coindesk.com, Bitcoin has failed to pass the US$70,000 level even though there has been a strong inflow of funds into the Bitcoin Spot ETF since October 11, 2024.
An interesting thing to note is that as of 07:11 WIB, the flow of funds traded on the US stock exchange (Bitcoin Spot ETF) on October 22, 2024 was recorded as experiencing an outflow of US$134.7 million.
This coincides with the moment when the monthly bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) options contracts will expire on Friday this week.
$4.2 billion worth of BTC and $1 billion worth of ETH options contracts will expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC. An option gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specific price within a specific time period.
According to Deribit data, it is worth noting that over $682 million worth of BTC options, which is equivalent to 16.3% of the total $4.2 billion, are expected to expire “in-the-money” (ITM), most of which are call options. Call options with a strike price below the current market price are considered ITM, while ITM put options are those with a strike price above the spot price.
This dynamic can cause market volatility as holders of ITM options in the money tend to want to close their positions or roll over positions as they approach expiration. The distribution of open interest at the last quarterly expiration that ended in late September shows a similar pattern.
