Options expiry concentrates BTC risk at major psychological level

The expiry coincides with both the end of the trading week and the end of the month, a combination that has produced an unusually large batch of contracts. Derivatives data show that spot markets have struggled to recover from this month’s sell-off, while fresh U.S. producer price inflation numbers coming in above expectations add a macro headwind for risk assets, including crypto.

The current set of expiring Bitcoin options carries a put/call ratio of about 0.58, indicating that long call positions outweigh puts. Analytics dashboards place the “max pain” level – where the greatest number of option holders would see their contracts expire worthless – at $100,000. Open interest is heaviest at that strike, with about $2.2 billion in contracts clustered there on the leading options venue, while nearly $2 billion in open interest sits at the $80,000 and $85,000 strikes, where short sellers are positioned.

In total, Bitcoin options open interest across all exchanges stands near $57 billion. Earlier this week, one on-chain data provider noted that the market had just gone through the largest drop in Bitcoin derivatives open interest of the current cycle, describing the shift as a major leverage washout rather than the start of a new bear market. Positions have since regrouped around the $100,000 area, with elevated call interest reflecting an improvement in sentiment after recent volatility.

Today’s expiry also includes a substantial batch of Ethereum contracts. Roughly 573,000 ETH options, with a notional value of about $1.7 billion, are scheduled to lapse, with a put/call ratio close to 0.50 and max pain around $3,400. Combined, the expiring Bitcoin and Ether options bring the total notional value of Friday’s expiry event to around $15 billion, with a derivatives venue describing positioning as having cooled to a more neutral stance near a key support and resistance zone following earlier deleveraging.

So far, spot prices have shown limited reaction. Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market capitalization has hovered near $3.2 trillion. Bitcoin briefly tested the $91,800 level three times but failed to break higher and was trading just below $91,000 on Friday (November 28, 2025) morning in Asia, while Ether slipped back under $3,000 after failing to hold above that threshold.