$1.35B in Bitcoin options expire this week — Do BTC bulls or bears have the upper hand?

This week’s Bitcoin options expiry sits at $1.35 billion, but what is the expected impact on BTC price?

Whenever Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action exhibits significant corrections, analysts and traders are quick to search for a reason, often pointing fingers at derivatives markets where bears allegedly exploit futures contract liquidation levels or anticipate increased profits from weekly BTC options expiries. 

Such talk has been on the decline recently, thanks to Bitcoin’s range-bound price action, but now that murmurs of a trend reversal have come back, let’s take a look at how whales are positioned using Bitcoin derivatives markets.

The recent failure to maintain prices above $65,000 on May 6 is an example of how some market participants blame the weekly options expiry for the recent downtrend. If this were the case, which can be inferred by BTC derivatives metrics, further downward pressure could be expected ahead of the 8:00 am UTC expiry on May 10.

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