Key points
- Bitcoin was near $77,915 on Kraken at 10:46 UTC on Sunday, up 0.6% on the UTC day but 2.7% below Monday’s open. Last week’s range ran from $81,882 on Thursday to $76,155.5 on Friday.
- Binance expects to publish a full zero-knowledge proof of reserves by Tuesday. Europe then gets France’s budget vote on Tuesday, euro-area inflation on Wednesday and the Bank of England on Thursday. US payrolls follow on Friday at 13:30 UTC (14:30 CET).
- Deribit shows 26,966 BTC of options expiring on Friday 6 Nov at 08:00 UTC (09:00 CET), about $2.1 billion. Calls outnumber puts three to one, and the biggest strikes are $82,000 and $85,000.
Last week the central banks had their say. This week the plumbing does.
The largest cryptocurrency traded near $77,915 on Kraken at 10:46 UTC (11:46 CET), up 0.62% from the UTC-day open of $77,437.1. Its low since midnight was $77,385.8. As Sunday’s First Print showed, bitcoin closed October 7.3% lower.
The week ran from a Monday open of $80,048.7 to a Thursday high of $81,882.0, then fell to $76,155.5 on Friday, October’s low. Ether was up 0.70% on the UTC day at $2,268.05, and XRP 0.49% at $1.2553. Solana was flat at $95.31.
Fund flows turned with the price. US spot bitcoin funds lost a net $202.4 million in the week to 30 Oct, after taking in $440.8 million over the first four sessions, according to our ETF Desk.
Derivatives are quiet. Deribit’s volatility index, DVOL, read 39.2, which implies a one-standard-deviation move of about 2.1% a day. Bitcoin perpetual open interest on Deribit was about $673 million.
Funding was 0.0033% per eight hours on Deribit. Put simply, funding is the fee holders of perpetual futures pay each other to keep the contract near spot, and at that level neither side is paying much to hold its bet.
The bitcoin week ahead, day by day (UTC / CET)
US clocks went back on Sunday. From this week, US data land at 13:30 UTC, which is 14:30 in Paris, Zurich or Berlin, the usual slot for European readers again.
- Mon 2 Nov: the Bank of Japan publishes the full text of its October Outlook Report at 05:00 UTC (06:00 CET), per its schedule. Voting on Akash Network’s Proposal 346, to move its AKT token from Cosmos to Solana, closes at 15:02 UTC (16:02 CET), per our report. The Fed’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, on bank lending, follows at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET), per its calendar.
- Tue 3 Nov: the Reserve Bank of Australia decides at 03:30 UTC (04:30 CET), per its calendar. Binance has said it expects its full zero-knowledge proof of reserves, which lets users check their own balances are backed, by Tuesday; see Binance’s 90% update. Devcon 8, Ethereum’s main developer conference, opens in Mumbai and runs to Friday, per the organisers. In Paris, the National Assembly holds its solemn vote on the revenue half of the 2027 budget in the afternoon sitting, after government questions from 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET); its crypto tax amendments are in our report. The US holds midterm elections, and US job openings (JOLTS) come at 15:00 UTC (16:00 CET). After the US close, Block, which owns Cash App, reports third-quarter results, with its call at 22:00 UTC (23:00 CET).
- Wed 4 Nov: Eurostat publishes its flash estimate of euro-area inflation for October, as scheduled in its last release; its usual time is 11:00 CET (10:00 UTC). On the XRP Ledger, the fixCleanup3_4_0 amendment, which closes a token-minting loophole for delegated accounts, can switch on from 14:46 UTC (15:46 CET) if its validator majority holds until then; see our report.
- Thu 5 Nov: the Bank of England announces its decision and Monetary Policy Report at 12:00 UTC (13:00 CET), per its MPC dates. Andrew Kang’s last day as Strategy’s chief financial officer; see our report.
- Fri 6 Nov: Deribit’s weekly options expire at 08:00 UTC (09:00 CET). The US October jobs report follows at 13:30 UTC (14:30 CET), per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speaks on supervision and regulation at 17:15 UTC (18:15 CET). It is also Senator Richard Blumenthal’s deadline for Tether and Nxum to hand over records; see our report. Around Friday, by our estimate, Zcash reaches block 3,543,405, the height set for its NU7 upgrade under ZIP 259. At Blockchair’s count of 1,141 blocks in the past 24 hours, that is about 4.7 days from Sunday morning, and the estimate moves with every block; see our report.
There is no Fed meeting this week; the minutes of the 27-28 Oct meeting come on 18 Nov. We are not quoting consensus forecasts for payrolls, inflation or the two rate decisions, because published ones differ.
Friday’s expiry, strike by strike
Of the 26,966 BTC expiring on Friday, 20,232 are calls and 6,735 are puts, a put-to-call ratio of 0.33. At Deribit’s index price of $77,914 at 10:49 UTC, that is about $2.1 billion by our arithmetic, one contract being 1 BTC. Ether options expiring the same morning add 53,332 ETH, about $121 million.
A put pays if bitcoin finishes below its strike, the price written into the contract. A call pays if it finishes above. Open interest is how many contracts are still outstanding.
This is a small book next to last week’s. Friday’s expiry is 9% of the 297,077 BTC of bitcoin options open on Deribit, which is itself down from 385,700 BTC a week ago, before October’s month-end contracts rolled off.
The calls sit above the market. Calls at $82,000 or higher hold 18,470 BTC, 91% of all calls in this expiry. The two biggest strikes are $82,000, with 5,485 BTC of calls and 437 of puts, and $85,000, with 5,183 BTC of calls.
Those strikes are 5.2% and 9.1% above Sunday’s index price.
Further out come $90,000 (2,837 BTC of calls) and $95,000 (2,330). The puts are thinner and lower: 4,819 BTC, 72% of the puts, sit at $77,000 or below, with the largest stacks at $75,000 (899 BTC) and $74,000 (873 BTC).
Open interest counts contracts, not intent. A call at $85,000 could be a bet on a rally, one leg of a spread, or a call sold against coins already held, and the data does not say which. What it does show is where payouts would start if bitcoin finished the week at those prices.
Our max-pain strike for Friday is $80,000, about 2.7% above Sunday’s index price. Max pain is the strike at which option holders as a group would collect the least if every contract were held to expiry. We calculate it from Deribit’s open interest.
It is a convention, not a force.
The levels to watch are $78,667, Friday’s high, and $76,155.5, October’s low, which bitcoin has not revisited since. Above, the line that matters for our market mood is still $84,250, the 12 Oct high. Bitcoin has not traded above it since early on 22 Oct.
A different reading
The calls flatter the book. If bitcoin is anywhere near today’s price on Friday morning, the $82,000 and $85,000 calls expire worthless and pay nothing.
The part that could matter is the stretch around spot, and there puts lead: between $76,000 and $80,000, puts hold 2,152 BTC and calls 1,132.
The bigger dates are later. Deribit’s 27 Nov monthly expiry already holds 49,282 BTC, nearly twice Friday’s, and 25 Dec holds 136,212 BTC.
Not on the calendar
- Binance’s other networks: by 10:03 UTC on Sunday, Binance had reopened withdrawals on seven of its 15 phase-one networks, starting with Bitcoin, per its latest update. It said it will restore the rest in phases as security checks are completed, with no times given; see Binance’s reopening.
- Threshold’s tBTC: Threshold paused new minting and redemptions for what it calls security maintenance, and Aave froze tBTC on its main Ethereum market. We had seen no restart notice as of Sunday morning; see our report.
Just beyond the week
- Sun 8 Nov: Diwali, the biggest holiday of the year in India.
- Wed 18 Nov: minutes of the Fed’s 27-28 Oct meeting, at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET).
Keep Friday afternoon clear: the jobs report lands at 14:30 CET, six and a half hours after the expiry.
As of 10:46 UTC (11:46 CET), bitcoin was trading near $77,915 on Kraken.
Related: Last week’s calendar
Related: Sunday’s First Print: bitcoin closed October 7.3% lower
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.