Bitcoin’s options market is large, liquid, and (at the moment) unusually concentrated. Total open interest stands near $55.76 billion, with Deribit carrying $46.24 billion of that stack, far ahead of CME at $4.50 billion, OKX at $3.17 billion, Bybit at $1.29 billion, and Binance at $558.42 million, while spot trades in the $92,479.90 area.
The curve tilts toward a single settlement date, Dec. 26, 2025, and the strikes with the heaviest traffic form a shelf around $100,000, with call exposure stepping higher in neat increments above that round number.
Max-pain readings sit in the low-$90,000 zone for near-dated maturities and drift toward $100,000 into the year-end cluster.
The Greeks panel adds one more data point: gamma is concentrated between roughly $86,000 and $110,000, with the flattest plateau around the mid-$90,000 to $100,000. Put together, the market has drawn a thick line around six figures and penciled the final week of December as the main event.
Why this options map matters
Why should a long-only investor care about any of this? Because these positioning maps tell you where hedging is heaviest, where intraday liquidity thickens, and where moves can either stall or accelerate.
They’re the places where dealers adjust risk the most, the dates when a large share of contracts disappears at once, and the round numbers that draw the most traffic from discretionary traders and programs alike.
When you know which strikes are crowded and which expiries carry the most notional, you can anticipate where rallies may meet supply, where dips may find passive bids, and where the tape can move faster once the market exits those corridors.
At the end of December, that corridor sits around $100,000 with the largest reset scheduled for Dec. 26, which is why the path into and out of that date deserves attention.
This setup matters because options do two jobs at once: they transfer directional risk from buyers to sellers, and they force dealers who take the other side to hedge that risk in the spot and futures markets.
A call is the right to buy at a fixed strike, a put is the right to sell, and the price of that right (i.e. the premium) absorbs volatility, time, and moneyness.
Open interest is simply how many of those rights exist. When a single expiry towers over the rest, hedging and unwinds tend to bunch around that date, and when one strike has the tallest skyline, that level becomes a staging ground for flows as price wanders near it. Options don’t dictate where Bitcoin must trade, but they shape the path by changing who needs to buy or sell as we approach those landmarks.
The strike map is a clean read on positioning and mood.
The tallest bars are calls parked at $100,000 with follow-on stacks at $110,000, $120,000, $130,000, and beyond, while puts are thicker down the ladder in the $70,000-$90,000 area. That pattern says traders have paid to own upside through six figures and purchased protection further below, a classic mix for a market that has already run and now leans on optionality to manage the next leg.
The max-pain curve aligns with this picture: near-term maturities cluster around the low-$90,000, while the year-end read sits closer to $100,000, reflecting the larger notional parked at that round number.
Dealer hedging turns those static pictures into action. When option sellers carry a net short-gamma exposure around a busy strike, they often buy dips and sell rallies to keep deltas aligned, creating a soft pin near the level with the highest sensitivity. When exposure flips and sellers are long gamma, hedges can chase the market move instead, adding fuel in either direction.
The gamma plateau spanning roughly $86,000–$110,000 tells you where this dance is most active, and the density near $100,000 explains why price can grind there for days and then travel quickly once it breaks free.
None of this requires a macro narrative, because it’s the plumbing of balance sheets meeting the arithmetic of option decay as time runs out.
Year-end gravity and the Dec. 26 reset
The calendar carries its own logic. Dec. 26 pulls because exchanges list popular quarterlies near the holidays, but also because funds prefer to tidy risk into year-end, manage tax footprints, and reset exposures when liquidity is thinner, and flows are more predictable.
When that much notional expires on the same day, the market often feels different immediately afterward. Gamma clears, hedges unwind, and the next set of expiries inherits the flow regime. If January rolls forward the $100,000 obsession, the pin can extend; if traders reset at lower strikes or reduce exposure, the first week of the new year can open with a looser tape.
CME’s slice of the total open interest adds another layer. Deribit dominates the crypto-native flow, but CME houses a good share of regulated fund activity and basis trades.
Those desks hedge more programmatically, often pairing futures, basis, and options across calendars. When CME basis, ETF net flows, and Deribit’s strike shelves line up, the market’s microstructure firms around those levels. When they diverge, price can slip through pockets where hedging is lighter.
Explaining options in simple terms helps frame why they are a useful sentiment gauge. Buying a put is paying for insurance against a fall; buying a call is paying for exposure to a rise without tying up full capital. The balance of who owns which rights, at what strikes, and on what dates, is a live poll of the market’s hopes and fears, but it’s also a map of forced behavior.
If many traders own upside at $100,000 into the same expiry, the dealers who sold those rights must manage their books as spot approaches that level. If those same calls expire worthless, the unwind removes a layer of supply that had been sitting on every rally.
This is why max pain is a helpful compass into settlement: it identifies the price that reduces total payouts to option holders, and while it has no legal pull on spot, trader behavior often nudges in that direction as time value evaporates.
The near-term read of this data is straightforward. With spot around $92,000 and heavy gamma sensitivity between $86,000 and $110,000, rallies toward the high $90,000s intersect the busiest hedging band. If positioning leaves dealers short calls, hedges tend to add sell flow into that approach and then flip as spot pushes cleanly through six figures.
On the downside, put ladders around $80,000-$90,000 can add supply when probed, though that sensitivity decays quickly as we roll past year-end. That mix frames where flows are thickest and where moves can accelerate once the market exits the hedging corridor.
After the Dec. 26 expiry, the shape of the curve will matter as much as the level of spot. If the bulk of that $55.76 billion rolls forward, the same gravity wells may persist, just with fresh time value attached.
If exposure nets down and the strike distribution flattens, price can travel with less friction, for better or worse. Traders often talk about “air pockets” after large expiries, but that’s simply the absence of hedging that had been damping moves, revealed once contracts disappear.
There are three practical takeaways from this for those who don’t trade options
First, treat the biggest expiries and round-number strike shelves as liquidity landmarks, because that’s where hedging is thickest and where intraday behavior can look sticky.
Second, use max pain and gamma bands as context tools, not as targets, because they describe where the market’s machinery is most engaged, not where price must land. Third, connect the options map to the rest of the microstructure, including ETF flows, funding, and basis, because the strongest pins form when those pieces point to the same place.
Right now, the pieces are pointing to a familiar price and a familiar date. The shelf at $100,000 is crowded with calls, the max-pain path leans in that direction into year-end, and the gamma plateau brackets the range where dealers are most active.
What happens next will depend on whether spot drifts into that corridor and decays, or breaks out and forces a larger hedge adjustment. Either way, the options board already describes the battlefield: a dominant exchange, a dominant expiry, and a stack of strikes that turn six figures into more than a headline.
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