Today, Friday, July 3, roughly 31,000 Bitcoin options contracts are set to expire. Their total notional value is around $1.9 billion, well below last week’s quarter-end expiry. For that reason, a major shock in the spot market is not expected.
Crypto markets, which had moved sideways throughout the week, came back to life on Friday. Since Monday, $70 billion has flowed into the market; losses have slowed after last month’s sharp sell-off.
The picture in Bitcoin options
The put/call ratio stands at 0.7. The long side is slightly more crowded. The maximum pain point is $61,000, very close to the spot price; this means some contracts will expire in profit.
The maximum pain point is defined as the price level at which options writers close the expiry with the least possible loss. The fact that the market price is moving close to this level is not a coincidence; on major expiry days, prices are often observed drifting toward the max pain level. This suggests that today’s $61,000 level could act as a magnet, at least in the short term.
On Deribit, the largest open interest is at the $80,000 strike price, with $1.1 billion. At $60,000, short position holders are carrying $900 million in bets. The gap between these two levels shows that the market has not yet decided on a clear medium-term direction.
According to Coinglass, total Bitcoin options open interest across all exchanges has fallen to $26 billion, a 16-month low. In its note this week, Greeks Live said the skew in short-term options continues to carry most of the downside premium in pricing. The firm links this more to short-term risk management than to a broader shift in market view.
Ethereum side is calmer
A total of 134,000 ETH contracts are also expiring today, with a notional value of $228 million. The maximum pain point is $1,650, while the put/call ratio is 1.3.
Total open interest in Ethereum options stands at $3.6 billion, its lowest level since January 2023. When Bitcoin and Ethereum are calculated together, today’s total options expiry reaches $1.8 billion. This contraction in open interest can be read as a reflection of the broader decline in risk appetite seen in the derivatives market in recent months.
A rare green day on the spot side
The broader market recovered on Friday, with total market capitalization rising to $2.2 trillion. Bitcoin climbed as high as $62,000 after Thursday’s weak employment data, then slipped back to $61,500 during the Asian session.
Ethereum held up more strongly. It reclaimed $1,700, gained 6% on the day, and has maintained that level for the past 12 hours.
The long weekend in the United States suggests that trading volume could remain low in the coming days. During periods of low liquidity, price moves are known to produce exaggerated results; on days like this, even small orders can move prices more than usual, so investors are expected to remain cautious.
