Friday’s Option Expiry: Bitcoin ETF Inflows Surge or ETH Spot ETF Breakout?

Wall Street's weekly options ritual sends crypto markets spinning as traders position for Friday's expiration frenzy.

The Bitcoin ETF Momentum Play

Institutional money floods Bitcoin ETFs ahead of expiry—hedge funds stacking positions while retail watches from the sidelines. Volume spikes 40% as the smart money makes its move.

Ethereum's Spot ETF Gambit

ETH spot ETF chatter hits fever pitch just as options contracts mature. Traders betting the regulatory green light could trigger the next altseason—or leave bagholders crying into their leveraged longs.

The Expiry Effect

Friday's options dump typically creates volatility goldmines. This week's 5,000+ BTC contracts expiring represent make-or-break momentum for both ETF narratives.

When Wall Street's derivative machinery grinds into gear, crypto either rides the wave or gets crushed beneath it—because nothing makes traditional finance happier than watching digital asset traders rediscover gamma risk the hard way.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Robinhood Markets, up 42%

(HOOD -1.10%), an online trading platform, can attribute much of its increase to it being added to the aforementioned S&P 500 index. Being added to it means every S&P 500 index fund manager will need to buy shares -- sending share prices up. You might think twice before buying, though, as shares seem overvalued.

2. Micron Technology, up 42%

(MU -0.86%), the memory chip specialist, rose mainly on a strong earnings report and bullish forecasts from management. Its future is promising, as the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) requires more memory.

3. Intel, up 38.6%

(INTC -0.83%) shares rose partly due toinvesting $5 billion in the company. This follows major investment announcements in August as well. Bullishness from Micron Technology also pushed shares of Intel higher, as the memory specialist expects growth in PCs and servers, requiring Intel chips.

4. Oracle, up 24.8%

(ORCL 2.90%) shares surged on news that the company's long-term performance obligations for its cloud unit soared by 359%. (That's a huge backlog of orders.) The big jump was due to OpenAI signing a $300 billion agreement to rent AI compute capacity from Oracle.

5. Palantir Technologies, up 16.1%

(PLTR -0.97%) also benefited from increased expectations for the growth of AI -- and a boffo second-quarter earnings report, featuring revenue up 48% year over year.

These are all impressive performances, but remember that it's only over a month, and that stocks can be volatile over short periods.