BlockBeats News, March 19th, according to CoinDesk’s report, ahead of the Deribit Bitcoin quarterly options expiration, the $20,000 put option has become the third most popular strike price, with a notional value of approximately $5.96 billion, reflecting traders positioning for an extreme downside scenario amid geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
In terms of open interest distribution, the three major strike prices are: $125,000 call options ($7.4 billion), $75,000 ($6.87 billion), and the $20,000 put option ($5.96 billion), showing a broad expectation of price movements in both the upside and downside directions. The total notional value of this Deribit Bitcoin options expiration is $13.5 billion, with a total of 195,719 BTC in open interest, including 120,236 BTC in call contracts and 75,482 BTC in put contracts.
With the current BTC price below $70,000, the $20,000 strike price is considered a deep out-of-the-money option, only profitable if the market crashes more than 70% from the current price. A significant amount of this activity is likely traders selling these deep out-of-the-money put options to collect premiums, indicating a low-probability expectation of a downturn to $20,000 rather than a direct hedge against a collapse risk—in other words, this is more of an income enhancement or volatility strategy rather than a direct bearish bet.
In terms of overall sentiment, despite the market being in extreme fear, the put/call ratio in the options market is still 0.63, meaning there are more call options than put options, indicating a slight bias towards bullish sentiment. The max pain point is at $75,000, a price that may exert a magnetic effect on the Bitcoin price before expiration.
