Traders Pile Into $120K Bitcoin Call for Dec. 2026

Options traders bought the Dec. 25, 2026 $120,000 Bitcoin call on Deribit, which holds 7,526.9 BTC of open interest. Overall options open interest has declined and futures positions remain concentrated at a few large exchanges. Bitcoin traded around $64,159 at 6:45 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

On Deribit total call open interest is about 303,642.92 BTC versus 215,446.49 BTC in puts, a 58.5% to 41.5% split. In the past 24 hours put volume exceeded call volume, with 11,148.96 BTC traded in puts and 10,504.94 BTC in calls. Other active strikes include the July 31, 2026 $80,000 call with 7,118.9 BTC in open interest and the Dec. 25, 2026 $60,000 put at 6,224.1 BTC.

Max pain levels differ by exchange. On Deribit near-term max pain is around $63,000 for the current weekly expiry, rising to about $75,000 for September and December 2026 expirations and easing to roughly $72,000 by March 2027. Binance’s max pain is near $66,700 for the closest expiry, reaches $75,000 for the September and December 2026 dates, then pulls back to about $56,600 by late March 2027. OKX moves from about $69,000 to the low $70,000s by September and to $75,000 further out.

CME Group’s regulated options market has seen dollar-denominated open interest fall from roughly $290 million in late November to between $30 million and $40 million by mid-June. On CME, put open interest has outnumbered calls on most trading days since July 2025. When the CME options book is sorted by expiration, most contracts cluster in the one- to two-month window, while positions expiring four months or more out have thinned.

Futures open interest across exchanges remains sizable and concentrated. Binance leads with 131.97K BTC in open interest, about $8.42 billion and an 18.22% market share. CME follows with 106.03K BTC, roughly $6.77 billion and a 14.64% share; CME’s open interest-to-volume ratio is 1.1547. MEXC holds about 71.30K BTC, and Gate and Bybit are near 60K BTC each. Smaller venues such as Bitget, BingX and Bitunix also record activity; BingX posted an 18.41% drop in open interest over a 24-hour period. Exchange-wide futures open interest in dollar terms has moved from highs above $90 billion last October to a range closer to $60 billion to $70 billion.

Aggregate options open interest across all exchanges has declined to roughly $35 billion from a peak above $65 billion in October. The largest single options position currently recorded on Deribit is the Dec. 25, 2026 $120,000 call with 7,526.9 BTC of open interest, followed by the July $80,000 call.

Data show traders concentrated in near-dated options on some venues while holding larger long-dated call positions on Deribit, with reduced open interest on regulated venues and a persistent concentration of futures open interest at a small set of large exchanges.