Deribit's Record-Breaking $16B Bitcoin Options Expiry Looms

Nearly $16 billion in Bitcoin options on Deribit are set to expire this Friday, making it one of the exchange's most consequential quarterly settlements of the year. The expiration, scheduled for 08:00 UTC on September 25, covers about $15.9 billion in BTC options and approximately $2.1 billion in Ether options. This figure alone accounts for around 37% of Deribit's total reported BTC open interest of roughly $43.5 billion.

The options book heading into Friday leans decisively bullish. Call open interest sits between $9.4 billion and $9.6 billion, while puts range from $6.4 billion to $6.5 billion. This translates to a put-to-call open interest ratio of roughly 0.69 to 0.71, meaning for every put contract outstanding, there are approximately 1.4 calls.

Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers described the September expiry as 'call-heavy' and one of the largest of the year. Bitcoin is trading near the $85,500 to $86,300 range heading into the settlement. This means about one-third of the entire BTC expiry book is already in-the-money.