BTC rose across three venues after Deribit settled at 08:00 UTC, then finished below its starting level by 10:00.
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Deribit’s expiry concentrates reported call exposure at $75,000 and $80,000, where dealer hedging can pin or amplify a move.
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Small positive offshore funding exposes longs on a drop, while CME leveraged funds’ net short creates an upside squeeze channel.
The post A $48 billion Bitcoin leverage trap is about to trigger a massive forced exit the moment price boundaries break appeared first on CryptoSlate.
New keys, saved histories, closed margin loans and an Aug. 28 opt-out boundary precede the estimated cutover.
The post How Coinbase plans to force-settle and instantly recreate institutional positions on Deribit within a 30-minute window appeared first on CryptoSlate.
For most of the month, traders had a pretty good explanation for Bitcoin's refusal to budge. A dense cluster of options contracts, they argued, was holding the price in a cage between $60,000 and $65,000, with dealers buying dips and selling rallies to stay hedged. Friday's expiry cleared roughly $1.2 billion of that exposure, and […]
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The headline figure is gross notional for one capped spread, while $72,500 touch odds stood at just 4.1%.
The post Bitcoin gets $2.5B target for $72,000 by August as unknown trader bets big on Fed rally appeared first on CryptoSlate.
Bitcoin and the wider crypto market faced a heavy risk-off session as ETF redemptions, leverage liquidations and a large Deribit options expiry converged.
Bitcoin options skew points to defensive trader positioning as put demand rises and the market consolidates around fragile support levels.
Deribit’s June quarterly options expiry settled with roughly $10.63 billion in notional BTC and ETH contracts, putting max pain and positioning in focus.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the exchange remains open to more acquisitions after closing its $2.9 billion Deribit deal.
Bitcoin price faces back-to-back tests this week, with May PCE coming out on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT and more than $10 billion in Bitcoin options settling on Deribit at 08:00 UTC Friday in the quarterly expiry that closes the second quarter. Bitcoin is trading near $62,500 after a rough June that briefly pushed it […]
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Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 by mid-June after a punishing start to the month, but the figure drawing the most attention across trading desks is the June 26 Bitcoin options expiry, with over $10 billion of contracts set to expire and roughly 80% currently sitting out of the money. In equity markets, zero-days-to-expiry options now make […]
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A Deribit Insights discussion argues that ETFs and institutional derivatives activity have changed Bitcoin’s market structure.
Deribit’s bitcoin open interest has overtaken BlackRock’s IBIT as traders brace for a showdown between $75K max pain and $80K call positioning.
Bitcoin tended to show muted performance on quadruple witching days in 2025, followed by weakness in the days to weeks after.
A proposal circulating in the XRP Ledger (XRPL) community is aiming at one of crypto’s most entrenched trading businesses: options. The idea is to build a purpose-built XRPL sidechain that feels “Hyperliquid-like,” a venue designed for exchange-grade execution, then connect that activity back to the XRPL base layer through bridging. In the proposal’s document, Hyperliquid […]
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Heavy positioning at lower strikes signals rising demand for downside protection for bitcoin.
Bitcoin and ether options worth billions of dollars are set to expire this Friday.
A rare streak of four consecutive declines collides with January options expiry that could influence short term price action.
Bitcoin options open interest continues to outpace futures, marking a move away from leverage-driven speculation toward volatility and risk-management strategies.
Dominant call positioning is shaping bitcoin’s price dynamics as bitcoin breaks out of its sideways range.
Ethereum (ETH) is approaching a pivotal derivatives deadline as billions of dollars in options contracts near expiration, placing the $3,000 price level firmly in focus for traders. While traders are betting on a move higher, Ethereum’s near-term price action remains uncertain. The outcome of this options expiry could help shape ETH’s next big move, either to the upside or down to lower levels—particularly as investors reassess their expectations following November’s volatility and choppy conditions. The price of Ethereum is currently sitting above $2,900 as a massive options expiration worth roughly $6 billion approaches. This event is expected to play a major role in shaping short-term price action and could influence investor sentiment heading into 2026. Ethereum Options Set To Expire This Friday Data from the derivatives platform Laevitas show that $6 billion in ETH options will expire on Friday, 26 December, with call positions outnumbering puts by more than 2.2 times. Despite this imbalance, bears still hold the edge unless Ethereum’s price moves decisively above $3,100. Related Reading: Ethereum Exchange Supply Just Crashed To New Lows, Why This Is Bullish For Price Earlier this year, many traders had positioned for Ethereum to surge significantly by year-end. However, those bullish expectations were undermined by a massive November decline, leaving ETH’s current options expiry vulnerable to further downside pressure. While call options still dominate Open Interest (OI), many of these positions would expire worthless if the Ethereum price fails to recover and push higher. This creates a fragile setup and leaves the market in a delicate position, where overly optimistic bets could quickly unwind if key price levels do not hold. Notably, the $3,100 price level has emerged as a critical pivot ahead of the options expiration set for this Friday. Traders have called this level “max pain,” as it represents the price at which the most options contracts would expire worthless. A close below this zone could give bears control and potentially open the door to further price declines. On the other hand, a clean break above $3,100 could flip momentum rapidly. Presently, around $3.8 billion in ETH options are expected to expire on Deribit, the world’s largest Bitcoin and Ethereum options exchange. In addition, more than $23.6 billion in Bitcoin options are scheduled to expire on Friday, potentially adding significant volatility to the already fragile market. Analyst Expect Further Volatility For Ethereum With the massive $6 billion Ethereum options expiry on the horizon, traders appear to be bracing for significant market volatility, as the event could trigger a sharp, decisive move in ETH’s price. Separately, crypto analyst Ted Pillows anticipates further volatility for ETH if its price moves in either of two key directions. Related Reading: Major Ethereum Metric Just Hit A New All-Time High – Can Price Reclaim $3,000? He says that Ethereum is currently in a no-trading zone; however, volatility could occur if the price reclaims the $3,000 level or retests the $2,700-$2,800 zone. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
A year-end options expiry for bitcoin is suppressing volatility just as macro and risk-asset positioning turns supportive for a higher price.
Bitcoin’s options market is large, liquid, and (at the moment) unusually concentrated. Total open interest stands near $55.76 billion, with Deribit carrying $46.24 billion of that stack, far ahead of CME at $4.50 billion, OKX at $3.17 billion, Bybit at $1.29 billion, and Binance at $558.42 million, while spot trades in the $92,479.90 area. The […]
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These flows represent a bullish bet on volatility rather than a downside hedge or outright bearish position.
A high-conviction Bitcoin whale placed a $2 billion wager that the worst is over and the market bottom might be in after a brutal leverage washout stripped speculative froth from the crypto market. On Nov. 24, Deribit, the Coinbase-owned crypto options trading platform, reported a 20,000 BTC notional block trade, which appears to signal that institutional […]
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A sharp drawdown has pushed BTC towards heavy put positioning at $80,000 ahead of Friday’s expiry.
The $80K BTC put is now the most popular options play on Deribit.
The price of bitcoin has dropped over 25% to $91,000 since Oct. 8.
Every few months, headlines warn of a looming multi-billion-dollar options expiry poised to shake Bitcoin price. This quarter’s figure, roughly $13 billion in notional contracts, sounds dramatic, yet it’s part of a well-worn pattern on Deribit, the exchange that clears nearly 90% of Bitcoin’s options open interest. The real story isn’t the size of the […]
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