Markets
Crypto Markets Crash Ahead of Friday’s Mammoth Options Expiry
Bitcoin and Ether options with a notional value of over $10 billion will expire on June 28.
Markets fell slightly on Wednesday in choppy trading as traders awaited U.S. economic data before major options expire on Friday.
Bitcoin fell 1% to $61,000 in the past 24 hours, while Ether is trading down almost 2%. In the meantime, Solana fell 2% after rebounding 8% yesterday.
BTC Price
Most of the top 100 digital assets by market cap are in the red or flat today, with the exception of Fetch.ai (FET), Notcoin (NOT), and SingularityNET (AGIX), which are up 5% or more. Tokens recently launched by ZkSync (ZK) And Layer Zero (ZRO) continue to bleed.
The sideways price action is occurring in the form of Bitcoin options with a notional value of $6.6 billion, representing more than 40% of total open interest, according to the options platform. Derivate – are due to expire on June 28.
Almost half of the outstanding Ether Options worth nearly $3.5 billion will expire at the same time.
According to Deribit, the so-called “maximum pain” levels – the price at which the greatest number of option holders will suffer losses – for BTC and ETH are $57,000 and $3,400, respectively. Bitcoin is trading about 6.5% above its threshold with two days remaining, while Ether is about 8% higher.
Stock markets are flat on the day ahead of U.S. jobless claims and consumer spending reports due Thursday and Friday. Investors will be looking for signs of slowing inflation and a weakening labor market, which could provide a reason for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates later this year.