$23.7 billion Bitcoin options will expire on Friday, with major positions concentrated around the $85,000 and $100,000 strike prices.

On December 23, CoinWorld reported that the price of Bitcoin fell below $90,000 two days before Christmas, approximately $87,400 on December 23, continuing a trend of stalled rises over the past few weeks. This Friday's record options expiry is a major driving factor, with about 300,000 Bitcoin options contracts (notional value of about $23.7 billion) set to expire, accounting for more than half of the open contracts on the Deribit platform. The Chief Business Officer of Deribit stated that the scale of this expiry reached $28.5 billion, including Bitcoin and Ethereum options, which is double that of last year. Nevertheless, the market remains orderly. Current market positions are mainly concentrated around the exercise prices of $85,000 and $100,000. Market liquidity has significantly declined, with Bitcoin perpetual futures open interest dropping by about $3 billion overnight, and Ethereum by about $2 billion. Analysts believe that the market volatility during Christmas week is mostly mechanical, and a mean reversion is expected after market participation recovers in January. Data shows that as of December 23, Bitcoin has fallen 6% year-to-date and nearly 20% over the past six months, potentially marking the worst fourth-quarter performance in eight years.