Bullish bitcoin traders grab crash protection as Friday's $8.9B expiry nears

Bitcoin and ether options worth billions of dollars are set to expire this Friday. What to know : Bitcoin options worth $8.5 billion and ether options worth $1.3 billion are set to expire Friday on Deribit, with positioning skewed toward bullish call bets. The bitcoin put-call ratio of 0.56 shows traders entered January expecting stronger bitcoin gains. Ahead of the Federal Reserve's rate decision, some traders are buying downside protection to hedge short-term volatility.