$18.6B of Bitcoin options expire Friday — heavy call concentration above $75K raises expiry skew and volatility risk

first published 2026-03-25T20:19:02Z

Nearly $15 billion of BTC options (~40% of Deribit’s BTC open interest) expire Friday on Deribit as a five-day diplomatic window tied to President Trump’s postponed strikes on Iranian power plants closes the same day. Deribit CCO warned the timing creates localized volatility risk while exchange data shows implied-vol compression and trader de-risking ahead of expiry. Analysts expect an orderly settlement but caution that post-expiry price action, elevated short-term volatility (~2.23% 30-day) and weekend moves remain possible; aggregated BTC open interest across exchanges is ~$112B. Watch ETF flows, on-chain accumulation and post-expiry order flow.

AI Analysis

Facts: ~$15B of BTC options expiring on Deribit equals ~40% of Deribit BTC open interest; the five-day diplomatic window tied to President Trump’s postponement of strikes ends at the same time as the options settlement; Deribit reports implied volatility compression and trader de-risking; analysts flag potential post-expiry moves and cite elevated short-term volatility and $112B aggregated BTC open interest. These concrete factors increase short-term downside/volatility risk for BTC.

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