According to Bloomberg, on Friday, June 26, Bitcoin options with a notional value of roughly $10 B will expire on the Deribit exchange — nearly 37% of the platform's entire open interest. The event arrives at a moment when the market is already under pressure, following BTC's drop below $60,000 and worsening macroeconomic conditions.
Another telling signal was the shift in mood among market participants. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 12 points — deep into extreme fear territory.
The Position Imbalance Has Intensified
According to Deribit, the market still leans toward bets on Bitcoin rising — the ratio of put to call options stands at 0.83. That said, a significant portion of the bullish contracts is already out of the money after Bitcoin's recent decline.
“A large part of the market was holding medium-term expectations of growth, but the drop in spot price left those positions vulnerable,” noted Deribit's Chief Commercial Officer, Jean-David Pequignot.
Liquidity Remains Limited
Tesseract Group believes the expiry itself doesn't set a new trend, but it can sharply amplify volatility. The large volume of contracts has collided with the thin liquidity typical of quarter-end, raising the odds of an abrupt price move before market makers close out their positions.
Analysts point to the first week of July as a more important test for the market, when the quarterly rebalancing wraps up and the volume of leveraged positions eases.
ETFs Have Accelerated the Bitcoin Sell-Off
Since the start of June, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have logged nearly $3 B in net outflows. At the same time, pressure is building on Strategy amid investor concerns about the company's debt load.
The hawkish tone from the U.S. Federal Reserve and rising yields on American bonds are also dampening demand for risk assets.
On the spot market, Bitcoin is trading around $61,600, shedding nearly 4% over the week. Market capitalization has shrunk to $1.23 T, though daily trading volume has climbed to $44 B.
Primal Fund estimates that traders in longer-dated options are leaning harder into bearish positioning, expecting the liquidity shortage to persist in the coming weeks.