Around 19,500 Bitcoin options contracts are set to expire this Friday with a notional value near $1.23 billion 🖤. This batch feels smaller than typical events so spot markets should stay mostly calm 🌙. Crypto markets climbed midweek on softer US inflation prints but those wins faded by Friday 💀.
Bitcoin Options Deadline 🔮
This round shows a put/call ratio of 0.87 so calls and puts sit nearly balanced 🕸️. Max pain lands around $62,500 below current spot levels which means some contracts finish out of the money. Open interest stays strongest at the $70,000 strike on Deribit with $1.6 billion while short sellers hold $1.1 billion at $60,000. Total BTC options open interest across exchanges has crept up to $30 billion per Coinglass.
“Puts continue to trade at a premium to calls across all major tenors although that premium has grown more uniform” said Greeks Live this week.
It hints the market feels less panicked about a sudden drop yet traders still pay slightly more for downside protection than upside bets just not as sharply as before 🦇.
“The proportion of large-scale bullish trades continued to increase this week primarily consisting of short-term bull spreads.”
Deribit added that this setup brings fresh liquidity and volatility perfect for short-dated options trading.
At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, ~$1.45B in BTC and ETH options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC : ~$1.23B notional | P/C: 0.86| Max Pain: $62.5K$ETH : ~$218M notional | P/C: 1.54| Max Pain: $1.75K
This floods the market with liquidity and volatility creating prime conditions for… pic.twitter.com/OlYg6LQsls
— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) July 16 2026
Besides today’s modest Bitcoin batch around 131,000 Ethereum contracts expire carrying $242 million notional a max pain of $1,750 and a put/call ratio of 1.5. Total ETH options open interest across exchanges sits near $4.8 billion which keeps the combined crypto options expiry at roughly $1.4 billion a modest event overall 🌑.
Spot Market Check 💉
Crypto markets touched a midweek high of $2.3 trillion yet those levels slipped toward the weekend. Bitcoin eased about 2% from its intraday peak of $64,800 down to $63,300 in Friday’s Asian session and appears headed toward weekly resistance near $62,000. Ether slipped nearly 4% from its recent six-week high to around $1,850 at the moment.
Just another echo from the void by iconofsin.eth 💖
