Bitcoin and Ether options with a notional value of more than $10 billion are set to expire on June 28.
Markets were slightly lower in choppy trading on Wednesday as traders awaited U.S. economic data ahead of key options expiry on Friday.
Bitcoin is down 1% in the past 24 hours to $61,000 and Ether is trading down nearly 2%, while Solana is down 2% after rising 8% yesterday.
Most of the top 100 digital assets by market cap are currently in the red or flat, with the exception of Fetch.ai (FET), Notcoin (NOT) and SingularityNET (AGIX), which are up more than 5%. Recently launched tokens ZkSync (ZK) and LayerZero (ZRO) continue to decline.
The sideways price movement came as $6.6 billion in notional value of Bitcoin options, accounting for more than 40 percent of total open interest, expired on June 28, according to options trading platform Deribit.
Nearly half of the roughly $3.5 billion worth of outstanding ether options are set to expire at the same time.
According to Deribit, the so-called “maximum pain” levels for BTC and ETH (the price at which the greatest number of options holders will suffer losses) are $57,000 and $3,400, respectively. With two days left, Bitcoin is trading about 6.5% above the threshold, while Ethereum is trading about 8% higher.
Stocks are trading sideways ahead of reports on U.S. jobless claims and consumer spending due on Thursday and Friday, as investors look for signs of calming inflation and a weakening labor market that could justify a Federal Reserve interest rate cut this year.
