Bitcoin stalls under $74K as $9B options expiry nears

Bitcoin retested $72,500 on Thursday, the first visit to that level in six weeks, and saw about $342 million in long position liquidations before a short-lived rebound to roughly $73,500. The May monthly options expiry is scheduled for Friday at 08:00 UTC.

Deribit, which accounts for about 70% of open interest for the monthly expiry, shows $3.4 billion in call open interest and $2.91 billion in put open interest for May. If Bitcoin remains below $74,000 at expiry, roughly $306 million of call options would be in the money versus about $1.05 billion of put options with strikes at $74,000 or higher. If Bitcoin climbs above $74,000 before expiry, put open interest would still exceed calls by roughly $265 million based on current positioning.

Options volume on Thursday produced a put-to-call volume ratio of 0.8, with about $1.57 billion traded in calls and $1.29 billion in puts. For the June 26 expiry, the $80,000 call traded at 0.0103 BTC, the equivalent of about $757, implying an 18% probability of Bitcoin trading above $80,000 by that date under standard options pricing conventions.

On the cash side, US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.07 billion in net outflows over two days. Several public companies have also reduced Bitcoin holdings: Paris-based Sequans Communications announced plans to fully liquidate its Bitcoin position, and publicly traded miners and a social media company have trimmed corporate Bitcoin balances.

The expiry’s concentrated open interest and recent leveraged liquidations coincide with the ETF outflows and corporate reductions. Market participants will observe settlement at Friday’s expiry and intraday spot trading and flows leading into 08:00 UTC.