Bitcoin (BTC) options worth $6.4 billion on the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit are set to expire on Friday at 08:00 UTC. 🚨 [Bitcoin (BTC)] Impact: 8/10 A massive $6.4 billion bitcoin op
Bitcoin (BTC) options worth $6.4 billion on the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit are set to expire on Friday at 08:00 UTC.
🚨 [Bitcoin (BTC)] Impact: 8/10A massive $6.4 billion bitcoin options expiry on Friday could amplify volatility🔗 Join our Telegram for full coverage:https://t.co/rQYbevTEWYpic.twitter.com/4HiAumLo8P
— @CryptoMainly (@CryptoMainly) August 26, 2026
On Aug. 28, a total of 81,700 Bitcoin options—44,639 call and 37,061 put contracts—worth approximately $6.44 billion in notional value will expire, according to Deribit Metrics.
As the put-to-call ratio is 0.83, it translates to bullish positioning in the market.
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An option is a contract that gives a trader the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell Bitcoin at a predetermined price called the strike price.
While the call option gives traders the right to buy Bitcoin at the strike price, the put option gives them the right to sell BTC at the strike price.
Suppose a trader has a call option with a strike price of $65,000 and an upfront premium of $2,000, which will expire on Aug. 28.
If Bitcoin is trading at $70,000 that day, the trader can buy it for $65,000. While one Bitcoin cost everyone $70,000, the options trader eventually paid only $67,000 for it.
But if Bitcoin is trading at $60,000 that day, it would be better to buy it at the market price and skip the option. Such options get expired.
When Bitcoin options worth billions of dollars get expired on a single day, traders pay close attention to metrics.
The open interest reveals how many contracts are still outstanding. The put/call ratio reveals where traders were bullish or bearish on Bitcoin.
Traders observe the "max pain" metric to spot the price where option buyers collectively experience the most losses.
So, the expiry of Bitcoin options worth $6.4 billion on Deribit this Friday could lead to volatility because market makers and other traders may adjust their positions.
The strike price of $75,000 holds the largest call open interest, with $236 million in notional value. The second-largest call open interest is at the $80,000 strike with $157 million in notional value.
New Market Trading founder and CEO Frank Hepworth told TheStreet Roundtablethat expiry weeks "always sound scarier than they are."
Of the Bitcoin contracts expiring this Friday, 62% are worthless and September's expiry is nearly twice the size, he added.
Hepworth expects a pullback and a key level to watch is the 200-day moving average of $69,000. The call-heavy positioning indicates the dominance of bullish sentiment, he added.
If Bitcoin holds roughly $65,000–$69,000 during a pullback, he sees it as a bullish sign that the bear market low is probably behind us.
Samuel Videau is the CTO at Genius Terminal, the on-chain terminal backed by YZi Labs, which, in turn, is the investment firm backed by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao.
Videau told TheStreet Roundtablethat the expiry of $6.4 billion worth of Bitcoin options this Friday is not $6.4 billion of Bitcoin being sold. "These are side bets on the price settling up," he added.
As the firms buy and sell real Bitcoin to stay balanced, Friday could be "choppy," but "that noise usually fades fast," he said.
"After a jump from $62,000 to $80,000, this looks like a healthy market catching its breath, not a crash.”
After the U.S. Treasury's decision last week to at least double the amount of longer-debt government bond buybacks spurred liquidity hopes, Bitcoin began rallying. In fact, it surpassed $81,000 after more than three months on Aug. 25.
As per the onchain analytics platform SoSoValue, the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $1.92 billion in inflows during Aug. 17–21. It was their strongest week in nearly 10 months. The previous high came Oct. 6–10, 2025, with $2.71 billion in inflows.
U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, Source: SoSoValueCan-Luca Köymen, investment strategist at Sygnum Bank, told TheStreet Roundtable that the ETF inflows imply the marginal buyer is arriving through regulated products rather than just through leverage.
Köymen said it needs to be seen if these inflows will persist and continue once the initial macro catalyst settles as these flows are one of the "clearest real-time reads" of the durability of institutional demand.
Bitcoin was trading at $79,560 at the time of writing, up 1.5% in a day.
Related: Record ETF flows show the ‘debasement trade’ is overtaking AI, analyst says
