Bitcoin is trading below a key cost threshold that short-term holders paid to acquire it — a sign that many recent buyers are sitting on losses heading into one of the largest options expiry events of the month.
Bitcoin: Bears Hold The Edge Going Into ExpirySupport is seen further down, in the $65,000–$70,000 range. That backdrop sets a cautious tone as roughly 23,000 Bitcoin options contracts — worth $1.74 billion — are set to expire today on derivatives exchange Deribit.
The put-call ratio for those contracts sits at 1.10, meaning more traders are betting on price declines than on gains.
Bitcoin’s max pain price — the level where the greatest number of options expire worthless — is $76,000, slightly below where it was trading at press time around $77,200.
In the past 24 hours, the put-call ratio for Bitcoin trading activity climbed to 0.73, while overall volume dropped. The Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates unchanged contributed to the slowdown.
Ethereum Sits Below Its Own Pain PointWhat makes Ethereum’s situation slightly different is where it’s trading relative to max pain. The ETH max pain price is $2,325, but the token was changing hands around $2,284 at the time of writing — already below that level. Its 24-hour range ran from $2,232 to $2,293. Trading volume fell 45% over the past day.
The options expiry is not happening in a vacuum. US PCE inflation came in at a three-year high of 3.5%, rattling broader markets and prompting profit-taking across crypto.
Together, those factors have kept buyers cautious. Crypto markets saw widespread selling after the inflation data dropped, and uncertainty around the geopolitical situation has not eased.
Whether today’s options expiry adds to that pressure — or passes without incident — may depend on whether Bitcoin can hold above the $76,000 mark when contracts settle.
Featured image from Gemini, chart from TradingView
