Around 153,500 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, June 26, with a notional value of roughly $9.3 billion. This event is much larger than usual, being the end of the month and end of quarter, so it may induce more volatility in the already battered spot markets.

Crypto markets fell to an almost two-year low this week, with total capitalization shedding more than $180 billion since Monday as the bear market deepens.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.73, meaning that sellers of long (call) contracts slightly outweigh short (put) contract sellers. Max pain is around $72,000, which is around $13,000 higher than current spot prices, so most will be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest 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 been climbing over the past week, and is at $34 billion, according to Coinglass.

“BTC heads into expiry well below its $72K max pain level,” observed Deribit.

“While max pain remains a widely followed metric, recent quarterly expiries have shown limited evidence of a consistent pinning effect ahead of settlement.”

“Puts continue to command a meaningful premium over calls across all major tenors,” reported derivatives provider Greeks Live this week.

There is “persistent demand for near-term downside protection, while longer-dated options pricing remains comparatively anchored,” it added.

In addition to today’s big batch of Bitcoin options, around 1 million Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $1.6 billion, max pain at $2,000, and a put/call ratio of 0.54. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is low at around $5.7 billion.

This brings the total crypto options expiry notional value to around $11 billion, which is one of the largest of the year.

Spot Market Outlook

Spot markets have tanked a further 3% on the day to their lowest levels since September 2024.

BTC lost 4%, dumping to just over $58,000 during the Friday morning Asian session. It rebounded slightly toward $60,000 as of press time after that fresh low for this market cycle. Analysts warned this week that a brutal wipeout at this zone was imminent.

Ether was briefly flipped by Tether in market cap, as it fell more than 5% to $1,522 on Friday morning, its lowest level since the April 2025 dip, and back to 2023 bear market levels. Meanwhile, the altcoins are a sea of red as the bloodbath continues.

Source: CryptoPotato