About 153,500 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, June 26, with a notional value of about $9.3 billion. This event is much larger than usual, being the end of the month and the end of the quarter, so it may lead to more volatility in the already affected spot markets.
Cryptocurrency markets fell to their lowest level in nearly two years this week, with total capitalization losing more than $180 billion since Monday as the bear market deepens.
Bitcoin options expiration
This week’s pool of Bitcoin options contracts has a call/sell ratio of 0.73, meaning that sellers of long contracts (buy) slightly outnumber sellers of short contracts (sell). The maximum pain is around $72,000, which is about $13,000 higher than current spot prices, so most of the money will be out at expiration.
Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts that have not yet expired, is still higher at the $80,000 strike price on Deribit, with $1.4 billion, but short sellers still have $1 billion in OI at $60,000. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has risen over the past week, reaching $34 billion, according to Coinglass.
“BTC is heading to expiration well below the $72K maximum pain level,” Derrbit noted.
“Although maximum pain remains a widely followed metric, recent quarterly expirations have shown limited evidence of a stabilization effect prior to settlement.”
“Put continues to command a significant premium over calls across all major periods.” I mentioned Greek derivatives provider live this week.
He added that there is “continued demand for near-term downside protection, while pricing for longer-term options remains relatively flat.”
Q2 options expiration alert
At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, approximately $10.8 billion worth of BTC and ETH options on Deribit are set to expire. The largest expiration event on Deribit in 2026 so far.
Bitcoin: Original: ~$9.3 Billion Virtual | Profit and Loss: 0.73 | Max Payne: $72,000
Ethereum: Native: ~$1.6B Virtual | Profit and loss: 0.54 |… pic.twitter.com/lFgWcR6kQc– Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) June 25, 2026
In addition to today’s large array of Bitcoin options, about 1 million Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $1.6 billion, maximum pain at $2,000, and a call/sell ratio of 0.54. The total ETH OI options across all exchanges is low at around $5.7 billion.
This brings the total notional value of cryptocurrency options expiration to approximately $11 billion, one of the largest of the year.
Real time market forecast
Spot markets fell another 3% on the day to their lowest levels since September 2024.
Bitcoin lost 4% dumping to just over $58,000 during the Asian session on Friday morning. It has rebounded slightly towards $60,000 as of press time after this new low of this market cycle. Analysts to caution This week it was reported that brutal annihilation in this region was imminent.
Ethereum briefly flipped in market cap terms, falling more than 5% to $1,522 on Friday morning, its lowest level since the April 2025 low, and back to 2023 bear market levels. Meanwhile, altcoins are a sea of red as the bloodbath continues.
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