The Bitcoin (BTC) price remained above the $69,000 mark on March 29 despite the market experiencing the biggest quarterly Bitcoin futures options expiry event in history.
Hao Yang, the global head of derivatives trading at Bybit exchange, told Cointelegraph:
Over $15.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency futures options expired on Deribit on March 29 at 8:00 am UTC, according to a March 28 X post by Deribit.
Of the $15.1 billion, $9.53 billion represented the notional value of Bitcoin options expiring at a put/call ratio of 0.84, with a “max pain” price potential of $51,000.
While options expiry can lead to heightened volatility, the max pain price point doesn’t offer an accurate reflection of Bitcoin’s long-term price potential, which is still tied to its fundamental values, Yang explained:
Despite the expiry, the price impact was minimal, said Andrey Stoychev, project manager at Nexo’s prime brokerage division. He told Cointelegraph:
Bitcoin price fell 0.7% in the 24 hours leading up to 10:35 am UTC to trade at $69,924, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s first cryptocurrency is up over 11.9% on the monthly chart.
Bitcoin’s historic pre-halving retracement occurred in line with previous historical retraces. The current pre-halving correction may be over if Bitcoin price can flip its old all-time high of $69,000 into support, said Rekt Capital in a March 26 video analysis: