Bitcoin SHATTERED A $6B ETF Record – $10.6B Friday Expiry Hits

**Scott Melker** (0:01)
Bitcoin just shattered an ETF outflow record for 30 days, over $6 billion exiting crypto ETFs. Meanwhile, we have the $10.68 billion Friday options expiry hitting this week. Does that matter or not? I wrote about it in my newsletter, we can talk about that. But I've got one of the best guests to talk about all things markets, Dan Gunsberg joining today. Let's go.
What is up, everybody? Welcome to the show. I hope you're all having a wonderful Wednesday. I was really just gonna say Thursday. That's how good I am at it. Oh, we just transformed to a lake house. It's nice. Wanna come to my lake house?
It's nice. It's a nice lake house. What's up, Dan? How are you?

**Dan Gunsberg** (1:02)
I'm Loonwell Scott. How are you? Great to be back here with you.

**Scott Melker** (1:06)
It's been a while. Well, let's first talk about, I guess, the main hits, and then we can dive into the prediction markets. And of course, you know, what else happened in the market? So Bitcoin drops towards 62,000 as chips sell off deep in the spirit of the day. Okay, I don't find that that interesting. I guess what's notable is what's in the title, which is also from this article, $6 billion in outflows, clearly not much interest in buying at these prices in this area. And of course, the $10 billion expiry coming on Friday. This is not the biggest of all time. People are talking about it like it is. I think we had a $27 billion one in December or something like that. But listen, you're an old options trader, right? So I think you can give some insight as to this. I sort of gave my shot at it basically why it's a nothing burger in my newsletter today and how we always talk about max paid and put call ratio and stuff.

**Dan Gunsberg** (1:56)
I think from a trading perspective, it's as you get close to expiry, all the theta decays out of the market and right before expiration, depending on which way the market's leaning, depending on which way the new max paying point people are looking to establish is will determine which way things trade. I think from a trading perspective, for traders, it's a great time to be trading, generally getting some very two-way volatility. But from an investor or somebody who's holding options longer term, generally nothing.

**Scott Melker** (2:35)
Yeah. I think it's actually more interesting to watch how people reposition after they close.

**Dan Gunsberg** (2:41)
Absolutely.
That's what I think you have to watch. It will set a tone, understand where the news is in the cycle, what is currently digested in the market, and what may be sticking out there, hiding out there that could change investors or traders' opinions on where the market is going next.

**Scott Melker** (3:03)
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. What do you make of just this general trend of outflows from the ETFs? I think we had two catalyst people consistently watched for the bull run, which was ETF inflows, which is a bit of an egg problem.
And of course, strategy. And both of those two things are clearly massively under pressure.

**Dan Gunsberg** (3:22)
Is strategy the only buyer in the market? This seems to be that in all of my circles, it's the comment. Everybody gives the egg analogy, like I'm the only buyer of eggs.
That story seems to be holding. So it's going to be really interesting to see. I think everybody who is active with Bitcoin or in the digital asset space or just that far out on the risk curve, who is going to come in and start supporting it? What narratives need to be in the marketplace? I think things like even like interest rates and recent Fed speak is obviously adding, could be pouring kerosene on cell pressure as well. Interestingly enough, if you look at the Bitcoin curve, which every time on the show I talk about this, I think it's still somewhere over 5 percent that if you were just going to hold Bitcoin from June expiration, which is now out to next June, the yield that it's paying is somewhere close to 5 percent. The curve is still showing higher Bitcoin price further out, which I find interesting. Usually, if we're in a real bear market, the futures curve gets very flat or it will even go backwardated.
Interesting to see that it's still there. Maybe there is still long-term bullish sentiment for Bitcoin, which obviously we all know how it's built and how it's programmed. But given the fact that the main narrative is there's one buyer in the market and it's MSTR is not the best thing for it at the moment.