Bitcoin and ether (Eth) The options worth more than $ 14.6 billion will expire on Friday in Deribit in what is emerging as one of the most significant derivative events of 2025.
The expiration is very biased towards the BTC sales options, underlining a continuous demand for downward protection, while it is more balanced for the ether.
At the time of writing this item, 56,452 BTC purchase option contracts and 48,961 sales option contracts were due to an agreement, for total notional open interest of $ 11.62 billion, according to Data Fouring Deribit metrics. Delibit is the exchange of larger cryptographic options in the world, which represents 80% of the global activity. In Delibit, an option contract represents a BTC or ETH.
A closer look at open interest reveals an activity concentrated in the sales options with raffle prices between $ 108,000 and $ 112,000. On the contrary, the most popular purchase options are grouped at $ 120,000 and more.
In other words, the price close to the current BTC price of approximately $ 110,000 is very sought after, while calls with higher strike prices reflect the hopes of more rise.
In the case of Ether, a total of 393,534 calls must be settled, exceeding the account of 291,128 for a significant margin, for a total of $ 3.03 billion in notional open interest.
The significant IPO is concentrated in calls in strikes $ 3,800, $ 4,000 and $ 5,000, and sales options of $ 4,000, $ 3,700 and $ 2,200.
“BTC’s expiration indicates the persistent demand for downward protection, while ETH looks more neutral. Combined with Powell’s Jackson hole signal, this expiration can help establish the market tone for September,” said Deribit in X.
The options are derived contracts that give the buyer the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price in or before a specific future date. A purchase option gives the right to buy and represents an upward bet in the market. Meanwhile, a sales option provides insurance against price slides.
The options market has grown to jumps and limits since 2020, with monthly and quarterly settlements that gain prominence as important events to move the market.
By 2021, some observers proposed that prices tend to gravitate towards ‘maximum pain’ levels, raffle prices where options of options suffer the greatest losses, in the days prior to the expiration. However, the validity of this theory remains a topic of debate among merchants and analysts.
When writing, the maximum pain levels for Bitcoin and Ether are 116,000 and $ 3,800, respectively, which serve as focal points for believers of maximum pain theory.
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