Large crypto holders have resumed accumulation over the past two weeks even as the market endured one of its heaviest single-day liquidation events in recent memory. Into Friday’s major options expiry on Deribit, Bitcoin hovered around $70,000, with derivatives activity signaling a broad reset in leverage.
Bitcoin Pinned Near $70K Into Deribit Options Expiry
Friday’s settlement of Deribit’s March Bitcoin options effectively put BTC in a holding pattern. The expiry covers 24,838 contracts with a combined notional value of $1.72 billion, and spot price gravitated to the $70,000 strike — the “max pain” level where the largest share of contracts expires worthless.
Max pain often emerges when open interest clusters around certain strikes, incentivizing a drift toward those levels as expiry approaches. That dynamic appeared to play out this week. Bitcoin slipped about 1.4% from midnight Thursday, landing near $70,000 as options traders focused on the settlement window. Market participants expected price to remain in a tight $69,000–$71,000 range into expiry.
$541 Million Liquidated as Longs Bear the Brunt
Across the broader crypto market, 141,810 traders were liquidated over 24 hours, with total losses reaching $541 million. Long positions accounted for roughly 80% of that at $443 million, while short sellers lost $97 million.
- Bitcoin led liquidations at $191 million.
- Ether followed at $165 million.
- The largest single loss was an $18 million ETH/USDT position on the Aster exchange.
The time breakdown underlines the cascade: liquidations were relatively balanced at $18 million over one hour, jumped to $126 million over four hours, and swelled to $300 million over 12 hours — largely from leveraged longs caught on the wrong side of the move.
Futures Positioning Resets; Funding Turns Negative
Industry-wide futures open interest fell 5.6% to roughly $107 billion, pointing to a notable reduction in leverage. Ether futures open interest dropped 9% alongside a 6% spot decline, a combination that suggests capital exited the market rather than merely repricing risk.
Funding rates for Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and BNB turned negative, indicating increased demand to hold short positions on perpetual contracts and a more defensive stance among derivatives traders.
Whales Accumulate Through Volatility
Despite the derivatives shakeout, large wallet addresses shifted to net buying over the past two weeks. The accumulation alongside negative funding and lower open interest points to a split tape: near-term caution in leveraged markets versus ongoing spot-side dip buying by bigger holders.
Traders now look to post-expiry flows and funding normalization for cues on whether Bitcoin can break out of the $70,000 magnet and reestablish directional momentum.