Whale wallets quietly shifted to buying mode over the past two weeks \u2014 even as the broader crypto market absorbed one of its worst single-day liquidation events in recent memory.<\/p>\n
A Massive Options Expiry Freezes The Price<\/h2>\n
Friday\u2019s settlement of Deribit\u2019s March options contracts has effectively put Bitcoin<\/a> on hold. The expiry involves 24,838 contracts with a combined notional value of $1.72 billion, and BTC has landed squarely at the $70,000 strike \u2014 the exact level known as \u201cmax pain,\u201d where the greatest number of options contracts expire worthless.<\/p>\n That pins price in a tight band. Traders expect it to hold between $69,000 and $71,000 until contracts settle later today.<\/p>\n Max pain<\/a> is not a coincidence. It describes the point where option sellers \u2014 typically institutional market makers \u2014 collect maximum losses from buyers.<\/p>\n When open interest is concentrated enough, the market tends to drift toward that level as expiry approaches, and that appears to be exactly what happened this week.<\/p>\n Bitcoin fell about 1.4% from midnight Thursday, landing at $70,000 by the time derivatives traders were watching closely.<\/p>\n The damage across the broader market was severe. Data shows 141,810 traders were liquidated over a 24-hour stretch, with total losses reaching $541 million.<\/p>\n Long positions \u2014 bets that prices would rise \u2014 accounted for $443 million of that, or roughly 80% of the total. Short sellers, by contrast, lost only $97 million.<\/p>\n Bitcoin led the wreckage at $191 million in liquidations. Ether followed at $165 million. The single largest loss was a $18 million ETH\/USDT position on the Aster exchange, wiped out in one move.<\/p>\n The time breakdown tells the story clearly. The one-hour window showed relatively balanced liquidations at $18 million. But zoom out to four hours and the figure jumps to $126 million \u2014 and over 12 hours, it hit $300 million, almost entirely from leveraged buyers who got caught on the wrong side.<\/p>\nLongs Got Crushed While Shorts Walked Away<\/h2>\n
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Open Interest, Futures Down<\/h3>\n