Bitcoin’s $16 billion quarterly options settlement arrives with a ‘call-heavy’ book
Nearly $18 billion in bitcoin and ether options will expire on Friday, potentially reshaping dealer hedging flows and short-term volatility.
- Bitcoin’s $16 billion quarterly options expiry could remove a key source of buying pressure and trigger fresh volatility after settlement on Friday
- More than half of the expiry’s $9.4 billion in bitcoin call notional is in the money, while puts are almost entirely underwater
- Bitcoin’s rally through $80,000-$87,000 may have been amplified by dealer hedging, a source of buying pressure that could fade after settlement
quarterly options expiries hit Friday, both multi-billion-dollar events, with positioning stacked in bullish plays.
Roughly $15.9 billion in bitcoin options and $2.1 billion in ether options expire at 8:00 UTC., according to Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers. The BTC expiry alone will shave off 37% of Deribit’s entire outstanding BTC open interest, around $43.5 billion as of this writing. Open interest here refers to the dollar value of active options contracts. Each contract represents one BTC or one ETH.
“This Friday’s quarterly expiry Sept. 25 is one of the largest of the year on Deribit,” Strijers told CoinDesk. “The September contract remains call-heavy, with a put/call open-interest ratio of 0.69 — positioning that was built for higher prices.”
A call option is a derivative contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy an underlying asset at a fixed price (the strike) by a set date (expiration).
