Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin options open interest fell 17% to $31.81 billion as of June 1
- Largest open position remains the $120,000 year-end call with 7,089.4 BTC
- Deribit June 26 expiry carries $8.5 billion in notional value with max pain at $77,500
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Bitcoin options OI drops 17% to $31.8B as $120K call bets persist
Bitcoin options traders shed $6.2 billion in open interest over 24 hours but kept their largest bet anchored at the $120,000 year-end call strike.
Bitcoin options open interest fell 17% to $31.81 billion as of June 1, according to CoinGlass, even as the largest concentration of open bets remained clustered at the $120,000 year-end call strike.
"The deleveraging is concentrated in near-term expiries while long-dated upside positioning stays intact, which suggests traders are rolling rather than exiting," Nina Volkov, crypto markets analyst at Edgen, said.
Calls accounted for 59.25% of total options open interest, representing 248,395 BTC, while puts made up 40.75%, or 170,837 BTC, per CoinGlass. The single largest open position on Deribit was the $120,000 December 2026 call with 7,089.4 BTC, followed by a protective $60,000 year-end put carrying 6,509.4 BTC. Two additional bullish bets — 5,769.4 BTC on an $80,000 July 31 call and 5,657.5 BTC on a $90,000 June 26 call — signaled conviction in a summer rally above the current spot price of $73,600.
The June 26 expiry on Deribit carries roughly $8.5 billion in notional value with max pain near $77,500, about 5.3% above the current spot price. How the price behaves in the days leading up to that settlement could determine whether the bulk of open call positions expire in the money or turn worthless.
The options drawdown coincided with a broader pullback in derivatives exposure. Total Bitcoin futures open interest across 11 exchanges stood at roughly $42.6 billion, down sharply from the $90 billion-plus peak reached in early October 2025 when bitcoin traded above $126,000, according to Coinglass. Binance held the largest share at $10.40 billion, or 19.14%, followed by CME Group at $7.55 billion, or 13.88%.
CME options data from CryptoQuant showed puts consistently outpacing calls since late November 2025, even as bitcoin recovered from its February 2026 lows near $65,000. That put-heavy posture among institutional hedgers and asset managers reflected caution at current price levels rather than conviction in a near-term breakout, according to the data.
Max Pain Points Higher
Max pain theory — which holds that option sellers benefit most when the underlying expires at the price where the maximum number of contracts finish worthless — pointed to upward gravity across major exchanges. Deribit max pain for the June 26 expiry sat near $77,500 to $78,000, while Binance max pain hit around $85,000 and OKX showed roughly $78,000. With bitcoin spot at $73,600, all three levels sat above the current price, a configuration some traders interpret as a magnetic pull higher into settlement.
The persistent dominance of the $120,000 year-end call, despite the 17% drop in aggregate open interest, suggested traders were deleveraging short-term positions while maintaining long-term bullish conviction. If market makers are net short those calls, they may need to hedge by buying spot bitcoin as the expiry approaches, potentially creating upward pressure on price in the second half of 2026.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
