Bitcoin price is struggling to regain the $42,000 support as bears hold a $585-million advantage ahead of Friday's $2.1-billion BTC options expiry.

At first sight, bulls appear to lead as the $2.1-billion open interest call (buy) to put (sell) options ratio stands at 1.32, favoring the neutral-to-bullish derivatives.

Take notice of how there are only 2,550 BTC call options at $42,000 or lower, representing a mere 8% of the outstanding. This notional is equivalent to a $100-million open interest. 

Meanwhile, bears hit another home run as most bets were placed at $36,000 and higher. The 17,600 BTC put (sell) options above such a level represent a $685-million open interest, giving the neutral-to-bearish derivatives a $585-million advantage.

At the time of writing, BTC managed to cross the important resistance at $40,000 for the first time since Friday last week.

Many investors who made substantial losses last week have come back in as they try to recoup some of their losses. Also, the fears of high inflation have eased, as evidenced by the performance of growth stocks, the US dollar, and bond yields. 

Bitcoin Technical Analysis

The 4H chart show that BTC has passed above 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level at around $38,287. It seems to be approaching 38.2% retracement level at $43,420. MACD is also crossing above the zero. However, the histogram is shrinking in the positive territory, which indicates that the buying power is not strong enough to domain the market.

If BTC fails to stay above $40,000, it may decline and test the 23.6% support again.

On the contrary, if BTC manages to stabilize at around $40,000, it. may go further to break $43,000.