Bitcoin's $16 billion quarterly options settlement arrives with a 'call-heavy' book

Roughly $15.9 billion in bitcoin options and $2.1 billion in ether options expire at 8:00 UTC., according to Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers. The BTC expiry alone will shave off 37% of Deribit’s entire outstanding BTC open interest, around $43.5 billion as of this writing. Open interest here refers to the dollar value of active options contracts. Each contract represents one BTC or one ETH.

“This Friday's quarterly expiry Sept. 25 is one of the largest of the year on Deribit,” Strijers told CoinDesk. “The September contract remains call-heavy, with a put/call open-interest ratio of 0.69 — positioning that was built for higher prices.”

A call option is a derivative contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy an underlying asset at a fixed price (the strike) by a set date (expiration).