#比特币衍生品与交割 The $28 billion annual options expiration is indeed spectacular. 267,000 Bitcoin options and 1.28 million Ethereum options settled on the same day. Looking back, such a scale was completely unimaginable ten years ago.

The most interesting part is the post-expiration situation. March quarter options have become the largest holdings, accounting for over 30%, mainly consisting of out-of-the-money call options. This signal is worth pondering. From a historical cycle perspective, pessimism at the end of the year often carries over into the early part of the new year. When the market is oscillating at the bottom, institutions and professional traders tend to use out-of-the-money call options to position for low-cost upside exposure. I have seen this approach many times.

The Put/Call ratio at 0.35 and 0.45 indicates that bullish sentiment indeed outweighs bearish sentiment. But don’t be fooled by this number; a low ratio actually reflects that the market is underpricing downside risk. The increase in large options trades before expiration is mainly due to repositioning, which is a normal risk management move.

The worst performance occurs in the fourth quarter, which is very critical. In an environment lacking incremental catalysts, seller strategies are often the best solution—time decay becomes your friend. But as the March expiration cycle approaches, if no black swan events disrupt the market, the value curves of out-of-the-money call options will tell a different story.

History shows that bottoms are always paved with pessimism. The current situation, to some extent, is similar to late 2019 and early 2023.