Bitcoin treaded water around $40,000 during European trading hours, largely unmoved in the last 24 hours, down around 0.6%. “It’s clear the market is steadily recovering from the initial shocks of the ETF introduction and GBTC unwind. Notably, call-put skew has been increasing from an earlier low, indicating a shift in market sentiment,” Luuk Strijers, CCO at Deribit, said. Bitcoin options worth $3.75 billion expire on Deribit on Friday at 08:00 UTC. Strijers said traders have been rolling their positions forward from January expiry contracts to February expiry contracts. Data show the max pain point (the level at which options buyers stand to lose the most on expiry) for bitcoin’s January expiry options is $41,000. The theory is that options sellers, usually institutions with ample capital supply, try to move the underlying spot market closer to the max pain point ahead of the expiry to inflict maximum damage on buyers.
