Bitcoin Faces Headwinds as Options Expiry and Technical Levels Weigh on Price – 27/9/2025

Bitcoin (BTC) closed out the week at $111,480.33, marking what is historically the third-worst week of the year for the largest cryptocurrency with a decline of around 5%. Week 38 also wrapped up the third quarter, which is up roughly 1%, while September has managed to hold flat.

The underperformance aligns with historical patterns, but several near-term factors contributed to the pullback. On Friday, more than $17 billion in options expired, with the “max pain” price — the strike level at which option holders lose the most money and writers profit the most — sitting at $110,000, acting as a gravitational anchor for BTC’s spot price.

A key technical factor remains the short-term holder cost basis at $110,775, reflecting the average on-chain acquisition price for coins moved in the past six months. Bitcoin tested this level in August, and historically in bull markets, it tends to approach it multiple times. This year, it has broken below that line significantly only once, during the April tariff-induced sell-off when BTC dropped to around $74,500.

Analyst Caleb Franzen highlighted that BTC has slipped below its 100-day exponential moving average (EMA), with the 200-day EMA at $106,186. The prior significant low stood at $107,252 on Sept. 1, which will be critical for maintaining the broader uptrend of higher highs and higher lows.

Macro Backdrop
The U.S. economy grew at an annualized pace of 3.8% in Q2, above the 3.3% estimate, marking the strongest growth since Q2 2023. Initial jobless claims fell by 14,000 to 218,000, the lowest since mid-July. Meanwhile, the U.S. core PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred measure of underlying inflation excluding food and energy, rose 0.2% in August.

U.S. 10-year Treasury yields bounced off 4% support and now hover around 4.2%, while the dollar index (DXY) remains near long-term support at 98. Metals, particularly silver at $45, are pushing toward historic highs last seen in 1980 and 2011. U.S. equities are approaching record levels, but Bitcoin remains more than 10% below its peak.

Bitcoin-Exposed Equities
Bitcoin treasury companies continue to face heavy multiple-to-net-asset-value (mNAV) compression. MicroStrategy (MSTR) is barely positive year-to-date, dipping below $300 at one point. Its ratio against BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) stands at 4.8 — the lowest since October 2024 — highlighting MSTR’s underperformance relative to BTC over the past year.

MSTR’s enterprise mNAV currently sits at 1.44, factoring in all shares outstanding, total notional debt, and perpetual preferred stock minus cash. Three of the four perpetual preferred stocks — STRK, STRC, and STRF — remain positive in lifetime returns, as Executive Chairman Michael Saylor continues to acquire BTC through these vehicles.

A growing challenge for MSTR is Bitcoin’s low volatility. Implied volatility has fallen below 40, the lowest in years. Historically, MSTR has been positioned as a volatility play on BTC; its annualized standard deviation of daily log returns was 89% over the past year but has dropped to 49% in the last 30 days. Lower volatility can reduce trading activity and investor interest, acting as a headwind.

Meanwhile, the fifth-largest bitcoin treasury company, Metaplanet (3350), holds 25,555 BTC and still has around $500 million to deploy from its international offering. Despite this, its share price struggles at 517 yen ($3.45), over 70% below its all-time high. Metaplanet’s mNAV has fallen sharply to 1.12 from 8.44 in June, with a market capitalization of $3.94 billion versus a BTC NAV of $2.9 billion and an average acquisition cost of $106,065 per coin.