CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,083.25 -1.73%
Bitcoin (BTC): $67,275.58 -1.53%
Ether (ETH): $2,633.54 -2.74%
S&P 500: 5,853.98 -0.18%
Gold: $2,738.92 +0.64%
Nikkei 225: 38,411.96 -1.39%

Bitcoin fell 2% to drop below $67,000 after its weekend push to nearly $70,000 had failed to hold. The decline comes as a continued uptick in the U.S. Treasury yields dents the appeal of riskier assets. ETH and XRP have both fallen more than 3%, while SOL and DOGE are around 1.65% and 2.35% respectively. The CoinDesk 20 Index, which offers a weighted measurement of the broader crypto market, is down more than 2%. Over $165 million in longs were liquidated across crypto futures tracking major tokens in a sign of a leverage flush, according to data by Coinglass. The use of leverage spiked over the weekend in a move that historically precedes market volatility.

Stripe's acquisition of crypto startup Bridge "validates" the use of stablecoins for public blockchains, broker Bernstein said in a new research report. Stripe - finalized the purchase of Bridge in a $1.1 billion deal, demonstrating "stablecoins [are] the leading use case for blockchains, particularly for cross-border payments," Bernstein analysts wrote. Bernstein noted that the Bridge deal is the largest crypto acquisition by a major payments company to date. Companies such as Bridge "play an important role by building API software for businesses to integrate stablecoin payments within their regular payments experience," the authors wrote. It's hard to see a more disruptive challenge to the TradFi banking system, "payments at scale without the involvement of a bank," the report added.

The APE ecosystem and native token's launch has been met with a bullish response from options traders on crypto derivatives platform PowerTrade. Open interest surged by over 800% to 263,000 ($394.5K) in one day, PowerTrade told CoinDesk, adding that call options or derivatives account for over 80% of the tally. Most activity is concentrated on the Oct. 22 and Oct. 25 expiry contracts, with traders buying higher strike calls at strikes as high as $2.2 or nearly 50% higher than APE's going market price. The activity in APE options is noteworthy, considering the token has a market capitalization of just $1 billion. That said, open interest and volume are way lower than the billions of dollars locked in BTC and ETH options contracts listed on Deribit.

BTC and ETH options contracts worth $4.2 billion and $1 billion, respectively, will expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC.

What’s worth noting is that BTC options worth over $682 million, equating to 16.3% of the tally of $4.2 billion are set to expire “in-the-money,” of which most are calls. A call with strike price below the going market rate is said to be ITM while ITM puts are those with strikes above the spot price.

The dynamic could breed market volatility as holders of in-profit ITM options look to close their bets or move positions in the next expiry. The last quarterly expiry dated end of September had a similar distribution of open interest.

Deribit data shows that the bitcoin put-to-call open interest ratio stands at 0.62 ahead of the expiry, indicating a relatively bullish sentiment. In other words, for every 100 call options active, 62 put options are open. The bias for calls is not surprising, considering BTC recently neared $70,000 for the first time since July.

- Omkar Godbole