Bitcoin Faces Worst Start In Five Years As $17B Options Expiry And Liquidations Weigh On Market

• Bitcoin dropped over 6% this week, sliding from $72,000 to $66,000. 
• Approximately $300 million in long positions were liquidated over 24 hours.
• Bitcoin's March returns turned negative, putting it on track for a rare six-month losing streak.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped over 6% over the past week, sliding from $72,000 to the $66,000 level on Saturday, as roughly $14.5 billion in Bitcoin expired on Friday.

Friday marked a significant settling point for crypto derivatives markets. Roughly $17 billion worth of digital asset options, including approximately $14.5 billion in Bitcoin, expired on crypto derivatives exchange Deribit. Options are contracts that give traders the right to buy or sell Bitcoin at a set price on a specific date. When contracts of this size expire, traders adjust or close their positions, which can push prices sharply in either direction.

Despite the expiry, Bitcoin's open interest on Deribit rose 2.38%,indicating that new positions were opened to replace those that expired.

The expiry compounded an already pressured market. Approximately $300 million in long positions, bets that Bitcoin's price would rise, were liquidated over 24 hours, compared to only $50 million on the other side, according to market data. This marked the fifth significant liquidation wave in roughly 10 days, with multiple sessions seeing forced selling approaches or exceeding the $300 million mark. 

Bitcoin was trading at $66,273, down by over 2% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around Bitcoin moved from ‘bearish’ to ‘extremely bearish’ territory, as chatter levels moved from ‘low’ to ‘normal’ over the past day. 

Bitcoin's March Gains Erased

The drop pushed Bitcoin's March returns into negative territory, down 0.53% for the month, putting it on track for a rare six-month losing streak. The last time Bitcoin recorded six consecutive months in the red was between August 2018 and January 2019, widely considered one of the most brutal crypto winters on record.

The losses add to a difficult year for Bitcoin. In the last week of March, Bitcoin is down approximately 24% year-to-date, marking its worst performance at this point in the year over the past five years. 

By comparison, Bitcoin gained between 95% and 100% in the same period in 2021, fell roughly 5% in 2022, recovered 70% in 2023, and gained between 65% and 75% in 2024. Last year, during this time, Bitcoin was down roughly between 10% to 12%. 

Reads also: Nasdaq Backs CLARITY Act While Lawmakers Debate Tokenized Securities Framework

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.