Bitcoin Holds Near $78K as $10B of Options Settle on Deribit

Crypto markets were relatively calm on Friday as the largest Deribit options settlement of the month cleared roughly $9.87 billion in notional exposure, with traders now turning their attention to next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and a renewed escalation in the Strait of Hormuz.

$BTC is changing hands at $78,088, up 0.8% on the day, 2.5% on the week, and 9% on the month. Ether trades at $2,316, flat on the day and down 2.3% over the week. Total crypto market capitalization stands at $2.68 trillion, with $93.8 billion in 24-hour trading volume, per CoinGecko. XRP was held at $1.44, BNB at $638, and Solana at $86.

The April monthly settlement covered 109,000 $BTC contracts with $8.55 billion in notional and 563,000 ETH contracts worth $1.32 billion, per Deribit data. The expiry cleared roughly 25% of total Deribit open interest. Heavy call positioning was concentrated at the $75,000 and $80,000 strikes heading into settlement, according to CoinGlass.

ETF Flows Diverge

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs logged $223 million in net inflows Thursday, extending their winning streak to eight consecutive sessions, per SoSoValue. BlackRock’s IBIT continued to anchor the flows.

Spot Ether ETFs broke a 10-day inflow run with $75.9 million in Thursday outflows.

Meanwhile, CoinShares’ weekly report pegged total digital asset fund inflows for the week ended April 17 at $1.4 billion, the strongest weekly print since mid-January.

Hormuz Escalation Resets Risk Backdrop

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be, that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” and directed minesweeping operations to triple in pace. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps laid fresh mines this week and seized two commercial vessels on Wednesday, per a subsequent statement from U.S. Central Command.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran’s measures in the strait are “entirely lawful,” according to IRNA. Tanker transits through the waterway, which in peacetime handles roughly 20% of global oil flows, have collapsed since the conflict began.

Fed Meeting Ahead

The Federal Open Market Committee meets April 28 to 29, with CME FedWatch pricing in a near-certainty of an unchanged federal funds rate. The Bureau of Economic Analysis will release Q1 GDP and March PCE on April 30.