TLDR
Bitcoin (BTC) options expired on Friday, 26 Dec at around 8:00 am (UTC), the standard settlement window on Deribits year?end roll. See timing notes in the expiry overview.
- Size was roughly $27 billion across BTC and ETH, a record for the market per the event summary.
- This was both the monthly and quarterly (Q4) expiry, amplifying impact per the quarterly context.
- Positioning skewed bullish, with BTC max pain near $96,000%%CKPROTECTED2%% and a put/call ratio near 0.37 per the options snapshot.
Deep Dive
1. Settlement Time
The key settlement window for Bitcoin (BTC) options was Friday, 26 Dec around 8:00 am (UTC), aligning with Deribits standard expiry timing. A parallel note shows 16:00 (UTC+8), which is the same instant in local Asia time, confirming the window across regions in the timing post.
Deribit dominated open interest, carrying about 80% of BTC options OI into the event, which concentrates the expiry effect on that venue per the venue share note.
If you track expiry impact, watch price behavior around 8:00 am (UTC) on major Friday expiries, since hedges unwind and flows reset at that moment.
2. Record Scale
The combined notional across BTC and ETH was reported near $27$28.5 billion, with BTC roughly $23$23.7 billion, marking an all?time high for crypto options expiry scale per the market brief and the event overview.
Thin holiday liquidity tends to magnify price moves around large expiries, and several reports flagged increased volatility risk as hedging pressure dissipates post?settlement per the liquidity context.
Big notional plus thin liquidity can produce outsized moves into and just after expiry. If your lens is momentum, watch for direction clarity once hedging flows fade.
3. Positioning And Max Pain
Positioning skewed bullish into the event. The put/call ratio near 0.370.38%%CKPROTECTED3%% and a max pain region around $96,000%%CKPROTECTED7%% were highlighted, with clusters at $85,000%%CKPROTECTED9%% and $100,000%%CKPROTECTED11%% strikes per the options snapshot and a construct recap.
This month?plus?quarter mix tends to be more forceful than routine weekly expiries, because more hedges and rolls occur together per the quarterly context.
When max pain sits above spot, pinning can occur into expiry, then release afterward. Monitor whether price holds or breaks key clustered strikes to gauge direction.
Conclusion
The BTC options expiry hit on Friday, 26 Dec at about 8:00 am (UTC) with record notional and a bullish skew. The timing, size, and strike clustering point to hedging unwind as the main driver. Near term, watch whether price action resolves away from the max pain region and how liquidity conditions evolve after the expiry window.
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