Bitcoin options expiry: $11 billion settles Friday on Deribit with max pain at $78,000

29 Oct 2026

29 Oct 2026, 18:37 UTC+01:00

Markets TradeReviewed News Desk

Bitcoin traders face one of the biggest options expiries of the year on Friday. About $11 billion in Bitcoin options, roughly 135,000 BTC worth of contracts, settle on Deribit, according to Decrypt, citing Deribit data. That is about a third of all Bitcoin options open on the exchange, with BTC trading near $81,500.

Calls outnumber puts nearly two to one

The batch is made up of about 88,700 calls and 46,500 puts, a put-to-call ratio of 0.52. The largest call clusters sit at the $95,000 and $100,000 strikes, roughly 16% and 23% above the current price. The biggest put cluster is at $70,000, about 14% below.

The expiry is about 70% larger than the $6.4 billion that rolled off in August, though smaller than the $15 billion expiry in March.

Max pain at $78,000, but most contracts are out of the money

Max pain, the price at which option sellers pay out the least, is $78,000, about $3,500 below the market. It describes positioning rather than predicting where Bitcoin will settle.

The $11 billion headline is notional value, not cash changing hands. About 86% of the contracts are out of the money, and settling at the current level would move roughly $130 million, about 1% of the headline figure, Decrypt reported. The bigger effect can come from dealers who sold the contracts and hedge by buying or selling spot Bitcoin as the price moves, which can add to swings into the settlement.

A hawkish Fed in the background

The expiry lands a day after the Federal Reserve held rates at 3.75% to 4.00% in a 10-2 vote, with the two dissenters favouring a hike. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.05%. Higher yields make risk assets like Bitcoin less attractive relative to government debt.

The next large test is December 25, when about 135,500 BTC in options are already set to expire, roughly two weeks after the Fed’s December 8-9 meeting.

What it means for traders

• Watch the $78,000 max pain level and the $70,000 put wall on the downside, and the $95,000 to $100,000 call clusters on the upside.
• Hedging flows can make price action noisy into the 08:00 UTC Deribit settlement, so size positions and leverage carefully.
• With yields above 5%, macro headlines may matter more than the expiry itself after Friday.

If you trade around volatile sessions, fees and funding add up. Compare costs in our crypto exchange comparison, read our BingX review (ranked number 1) and OKX review (number 2), and see how we test.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.

Follow TradeReviewed on X and our Telegram channel: you hear crypto and trading news here first.

Related reviews

• Bingx review
• Okx review

Sources

• Decrypt: $11 Billion in Bitcoin Options Expire Tomorrow: Here's What It Means

News is for information only and is not financial advice. More crypto news