$2.7B Bitcoin Options Expire Friday Amid Market Weakness

The batch of 31,000 expiring Bitcoin options contracts carries a put/call ratio of 0.8, indicating a slight predominance of call options over puts. According to data from Coinglass, the “max pain” price—the strike price at which the maximum number of options would expire worthless—is approximately $88,000. Deribit, a leading crypto derivatives exchange, noted that open interest is concentrated around this $88,000 level, with “slightly heavier put positioning.” This concentration suggests the expiry’s influence on the spot price of Bitcoin may be limited unless the market breaks out of its current trading range.

Beyond the immediate expiry, the broader open interest landscape reveals significant positions at higher strikes. The $100,000 strike price holds the largest open interest, with $2.3 billion in contracts on Deribit alone. Meanwhile, the $85,000 strike, which Bitcoin tested this week, still has around $2.1 billion in open interest. Total Bitcoin options open interest across all exchanges stands at a substantial $52.5 billion, underscoring the scale of the derivatives market even as spot prices falter.

Friday’s expiry is not limited to Bitcoin. Approximately 155,000 Ethereum options contracts, with a notional value of $460 million, are also maturing. These contracts exhibit a different profile, with a put/call ratio of 1.1, signaling more puts than calls, and a max pain point at $3,100. Deribit analysts observed that Ethereum’s options positioning is “more distributed across strikes” compared to Bitcoin’s, with notable interest for upside moves above $3,400. This distribution means that if market volatility reaccelerates, Ethereum could be primed for larger price swings.

The total open interest for Ethereum options across exchanges is approximately $11 billion, a figure that has been in decline since late August. The simultaneous expiry of these major Bitcoin and Ethereum derivatives contracts creates a combined $3.2 billion event, focusing trader attention on potential pinning effects—where the spot price is drawn toward the strike with the highest open interest—as the weekly close approaches.

The derivatives expiry occurs as spot markets exhibit pronounced weakness. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has dropped below $3 trillion, reaching its lowest level since April. Bitcoin’s price action has been particularly turbulent, experiencing what was described as a manipulated pump-and-dump following a U.S. Consumer Price Index print. It fell to $84,500 before marginally recovering to $85,000 during Asian trading hours, leaving the asset looking “structurally weak” with further losses anticipated.

Ethereum has also struggled, briefly falling below the $2,800 support level. The altcoin market faced even steeper declines, with major assets like XRP, Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA) all losing more than 4% in a single day. This broad-based sell-off is attributed to several key factors: a renewed crackdown on Bitcoin mining in China, delays in establishing clear crypto market regulations in the United States, and investor anxiety over potential interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan. These elements have combined to erode market confidence and drive capital away from risk assets.