Take my advice: don’t be fooled by headlines like "Bitcoin to Rise This Friday Due to Record Options Expiry." After 8 years of crypto trading analysis, accurately navigating two major options expiries in December 2024 and March 2025, I dare say this wave of market movement is fundamentally the easiest trap for beginners to fall into. If you really want to participate, without understanding these 3 pitfalls, the probability of your capital being cut in half around expiry is alarmingly high.

First, look at the data. The Bitcoin options expiring this Friday amount to $23.7 billion, accounting for more than half of Deribit’s (the world’s largest crypto options platform) open interest. To put it another way, it’s nearly 1% of the entire crypto market’s $3 trillion total market cap. Sounds exciting, right? But the key lies in the main positions—both call and put options are heavily concentrated at the $85,000 and $100,000 strike prices. The bulls want to push to $100,000, while the bears are watching whether $85,000 will hold. This extreme divergence itself is a signal; the so-called "options expiry driving prices higher" is purely a myth to fool beginners.

The first pitfall: never chase the rally. There are many voices promoting bullish narratives, but they all ignore the current market structure. I checked the latest data: Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility has risen back to 45%, but the options skew remains at around -5% in the put zone. What does this mean? It indicates that institutions buying puts for downside protection far outnumber those betting on upside via calls. Market makers hold long gamma positions, which follow the logic of "buy low, sell high." They seem to keep the price tightly oscillating around $87,400, but behind the scenes, they are actively positioning for strategic moves.

The second pitfall: don’t underestimate the volatility before large options expiries. Historical data shows that within 24 hours before a big expiry, implied volatility spikes sharply, often exceeding expectations. Beginners often think "big expiry = one-sided move," but in reality, it’s usually a back-and-forth shakeout that causes stop-losses to be hit frequently.

The third pitfall: don’t underestimate the power of counterparty forces. The counterparties for such large options positions are usually big players or institutions with ample funds to push prices toward the strike prices most favorable to them. No matter how smart retail traders are, they can’t overcome the capital and informational advantages of these big players.

Instead of gambling on the expiry-driven market moves, it’s better to calmly analyze fundamentals and on-chain data to wait for clearer opportunities.