Tomorrow (September 25), the crypto market will see one of the most important derivatives events this quarter: options worth roughly $18 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum will expire in a concentrated window.
Judging by the positioning structure, sentiment is clearly tilted toward the long side. Data from Coinbase Markets shows that the BTC put/call open interest ratio is about 0.66, and for ETH it is about 0.61—call options dominate. For BTC, the majority of call open interest is concentrated around strike prices of $90,000 and $100,000, while for ETH it is clustered in the $3,000 to $4,000 range. Deribit’s calculations paint a similar picture: about $15.6 billion worth of BTC options expire on the same day, with a higher share of calls.
But expiration day is never a game of simply betting on direction. Options market makers manage their risk exposure by carrying out large-scale hedging buy/sell transactions before and around expiration, which in turn amplifies short-term volatility. To make matters worse, on the expiration day there will also be macro data releases in the U.S., such as durable goods orders and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has just broken above 5%—a day when derivatives and macro factors resonate typically brings more volatility than usual.
On delivery/settlement day, we don’t predict whether prices will rise or fall—we only observe how the market unfolds. The structure itself is information.
Data cutoff: 2026-09-24 20:32 (UTC+8)
For learning and record only; does not constitute investment advice.
Judging by the positioning structure, sentiment is clearly tilted toward the long side. Data from Coinbase Markets shows that the BTC put/call open interest ratio is about 0.66, and for ETH it is about 0.61—call options dominate. For BTC, the majority of call open interest is concentrated around strike prices of $90,000 and $100,000, while for ETH it is clustered in the $3,000 to $4,000 range. Deribit’s calculations paint a similar picture: about $15.6 billion worth of BTC options expire on the same day, with a higher share of calls.
But expiration day is never a game of simply betting on direction. Options market makers manage their risk exposure by carrying out large-scale hedging buy/sell transactions before and around expiration, which in turn amplifies short-term volatility. To make matters worse, on the expiration day there will also be macro data releases in the U.S., such as durable goods orders and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has just broken above 5%—a day when derivatives and macro factors resonate typically brings more volatility than usual.
On delivery/settlement day, we don’t predict whether prices will rise or fall—we only observe how the market unfolds. The structure itself is information.
Data cutoff: 2026-09-24 20:32 (UTC+8)
For learning and record only; does not constitute investment advice.
