Will Markets Continue to Fall When $1.8B Crypto Options Expire Today?

The end of another week has arrived, meaning more crypto options are expiring while spot markets have fallen to their lowest levels in months. 

Around 26,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, June 5, with a notional value of roughly $1.6 billion. This is smaller than last week’s end-of-month event, so it is unlikely to impact spot markets.

Crypto markets have been in sharp decline all week, with more than $300 billion leaving the space as Bitcoin continues to weaken and Ether and the altcoins get smashed.

Military strikes between the US and Iran have continued, a deal still seems elusive, and global inflationary pressures are rising.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.56, meaning that sellers of long contracts far outweigh short contract sellers. Max pain is around $71,000, according to Coinglass, which is much higher than current spot prices, so most could be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at the $80,000 strike price on Deribit, with $1.6 billion, but short sellers still have $1.1 billion in OI at $60,000. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been declining recently, and is at $31.6 billion, according to Coinglass.

BTC spot is trading around $8,000 below max pain after a brutal week that saw $1.5 billion in liquidations and a brief flush under $62,000 while its positioning skews heavily call-side, said Deribit.

Meanwhile, crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live said, “With the price breaking below $70K, bears have become more aggressive, with significant increases in put positions at $68K, $65K, and $60K.”

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🚨 Options Expiry Alert 🚨
At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, ~$1.81B in crypto options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: $1.56B notional | P/C: 0.56 | Max Pain: $71K$ETH: $252M notional | P/C: 0.97 | Max Pain: $2K

BTC spot is trading ~$8K below max pain after a brutal week that saw… pic.twitter.com/qmXv8uhHFr

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) June 4, 2026

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 153,500 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $266 million, max pain at $2,000, and a put/call ratio of 0.97. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $5.7 billion.

This brings the total crypto options expiry notional value to around $1.85 billion, a relatively small event.

Spot Market Outlook

It has been the worst week for crypto markets since early February, with total capitalization tanking to a four-month low of $2.26 trillion.

Bitcoin bottomed at $61,300 on Thursday and has not recovered much above this level on Friday morning. The asset remains down over 50% from its peak and is at the bottom of its range-bound channel, where key support lies.

Ether has been mauled, dropping to a 14-month low of $1,730, where it currently trades. Further losses are looking likely as we enter a red weekend for digital assets.