January 29th, A Magic Day?

This Friday, January 29th, is a pretty big day for bitcoin as numerous derivatives are set to expire.

First there’s the “monster expiry” of 100,000 bitcoin options contracts worth more than $3 billion.

That’s the biggest ever, with it to be seen what effect it will have on bitcoin’s price.

By comparison, on the Friday of last month, bitcoin’s price rose from $23,000 to $27,000 the next day.

That happened to be after a week of sidewaying as well, with CME futures set to expire this Friday too.

CME is handling significant volumes with their biggest day being January 11th when bitcoin fell, suggesting perhaps they’re mainly short.

On that day some $4.4 billion worth of contracts were traded, probably its biggest ever.

Those contracts are now set to expire, meaning they will have to close their position.

As such, if they were mainly short then presumably they will have to buy bitcoin to cover their short.

Except here it is paper futures but to cover liabilities you’d think they’d hedge with the actual spot asset. Hence how derivatives can potentially affect the spot price.

As it happens on Friday 29th the GME short contracts expire as well. Making it potentially a volatile day on the stock market too.

Which way that volatility will mainly go remains to be seen, but once these contracts clear off, Saylor then opens the month with a bitcoin conference while ethereum sees the launch of its own futures on CME.

Meaning the way could be cleared after some sideways, with the biggest question being whether the market thinks positively or otherwise – or doesn’t care at all – about these massive contract expiries.

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