Bitcoin heads into a near-$10 billion options expiry on Deribit this Friday with almost all of the expiring call bets stranded above a falling spot price, leaving the market exposed to fresh defensive selling.
The June 26 settlement carries about $9.6 billion in notional value on Deribit, the largest crypto options venue, with 78% of that total sitting out of the money after Bitcoin’s slide. The expiry lands as institutional demand fades and macroeconomic pressure builds, sharpening the risk that one-sided positioning amplifies the next move.
Bitcoin Calls Stranded Out of the Money
Of the 91,149 call contracts set to expire, 97.83% sit out of the money, worth $5.44 billion against just $120.5 million of calls that still hold intrinsic value at current prices, taking total call notional to $5.56 billion. The skew has built through June, with bears already eyeing the expiry as the sell-off pushed bullish positioning far above spot.
Puts tell a more balanced story, splitting almost evenly between $2.07 billion out of the money and $2 billion in the money for $4.07 billion in put notional. The 66,726 put contracts bring total open interest for the expiry to 157,875, and across both sides $7.51 billion of that book carries no intrinsic value at current prices, leaving 78.01% out of the money against 21.99% in the money.
Source: DerbitThe put-to-call ratio of 0.73 shows traders still leaning toward higher prices, while the max pain level, the strike where the most options expire worthless, sits at $72,000, roughly 18% above spot. With Bitcoin trading well below that mark, the bulk of those call bets are set to lapse.
The June 26 block towers over the rest of the curve, dwarfing the next-largest expiries dated July 31, September 25 and December 25 and concentrating the unwinding into a single session, the kind of high-value settlement that has amplified volatility in past cycles as thin quarter-end liquidity meets a one-sided book.
Bitcoin Spot Slides as Futures Signals Split
In the late hours of June 24, the asset fell to an intraday low of $59,012 on the Binance chart as selling pressure intensified significantly. On a year-to-date basis, it is down 30% and remains approximately 51% below its all-time high reached in October.
The perpetual futures market sends a more mixed signal, with the long-to-short ratio sitting at 0.965 on CoinGlass, a reading below 1 that points to heavier selling than buying volume across trader positioning.
The open-interest-weighted funding rate complicates that read, turning slightly positive at 0.0078% and showing long traders now dominate Bitcoin’s perpetual contracts after flipping from short dominance between June 24 and 25. Because that metric weights funding by the share of open interest each contract holds, the positive print signals that the larger pools of positioning have tilted back toward the long side even as headline volume still favors sellers.
Source: CoinGlassLiquidations still tilt against the bulls, with roughly $320.74 million in long positions wiped out over the past 24 hours against $97.28 million for shorts, a more than three-to-one imbalance that keeps the broader tape in a cautious state.
Macro conditions add to the strain as the prospect of rising interest rates pulls capital away from assets that pay no yield, with hawkish Federal Reserve commentary and elevated Treasury yields pointing to tighter liquidity ahead of Friday’s settlement.
