Bitcoin traded within a narrow range during U.S. hours on Thursday, approaching a significant options expiry scheduled for Friday. The cryptocurrency is currently priced around $107,500, down 0.2% over the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 index, which tracks the top 20 cryptocurrencies excluding stablecoins and exchange coins, fell 0.9% in the same period.
Jean-David Péquignot, Chief Commercial Officer at Deribit, highlighted the upcoming expiry as one of the largest of the year. BTC options open interest stands at $40 billion, with 38% of contracts set to expire Friday.
“Max pain price for Friday is at $102,000, with a put/call ratio of 0.73,” Péquignot said.
Bitcoin’s implied volatility, measured by Deribit DVOL, has dropped from 50% to 38% following a volatile April, suggesting growing market confidence in Bitcoin’s role as a macro hedge. Put-call skews indicate no clear directional bias among traders in the short term.
“The $105,000 level is critical. Technical indicators advise caution if this support breaks,” Péquignot added. He noted low open interest in perpetual contracts and subdued implied volatility and skew, signaling limited expectations for dramatic price shifts before Friday’s expiry.
In the broader crypto market, several crypto stocks posted gains on Thursday. Core Scientific (CORZ) surged over 33% following a Wall Street Journal report that AI Hyperscaler CoreWeave (CRWV) may acquire the bitcoin miner.
- Circle (CRCL), Coinbase (COIN), Riot Platforms (RIOT), and Hut 8 (HUT) gained 5% to 7%.
- MicroStrategy (MSTR) slipped nearly 1%.