Will Markets React to Bitcoin’s $1.9 Billion Option?

Another Friday turned upside down, which means crypto options contracts are closing in as spot markets take rare gains.

About 27,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, March 13, with a notional value of about $1.9 billion. This event is smaller than usual, so it is likely to affect the spot markets.

Crypto prices have been flat for most of this week, with a slight uptick on Friday and a total market capitalization of $150 billion since Monday, but volatility and volume have declined.

Expiration of Bitcoin options

This week’s collection of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.97, which means longs and shorts are relatively evenly matched. According to Coinglass, the maximum pain is about $69,000, which is very close to current spot prices, so many may be in the money after the expiration date.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts not yet expired, remains the highest at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit with $1.7 billion in bets. BTC OI options volume across all exchanges rose to $45.5 billion this month.

Crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live has spotted the market rally, noting that Bitcoin is above the psychological threshold of $70,000 and “is now poised to challenge $75,000.”

After March, the flat forward volatility curve does not imply any significant structural premium, suggesting balanced risk pricing for long options amid stable crypto sentiment, Greeks Live noted this week.

🚨 Options Expiration Notice | 08:00 UTC Friday
~$2.27B in crypto options set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: 26,889 contracts $1.89 billion conditional | P/C: 0.97
OI with $55K-$60K raised versus $75K-$80K calls, $70.2K spot sitting in no man’s land.
Max Pain: $69K$ETH: 185,268… pic.twitter.com/H9zji7lzbW

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) March 12, 2026

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In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, about 185,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a normal value of $382 million, a maximum pain of $2,000, and a put/call ratio of 1.2. The total ETH OI options across all exchanges is about $7.9 billion.

This brings the total value of crypto options to around $2.3 billion.

Spot market outlook

Spot markets rose in Asia on Friday morning, with total capital again hitting $2.5 trillion, the highest level in a week.

Bitcoin fell just short of $72,000 in early trading, but found resistance there again and started to pull back at the time of writing.

Ether prices improved with a 4% gain, sending them just above $2,100.

Altcoins were also mostly in the green today, with bigger moves for Solana, Hyperliquid, Avalanche and Sui. Meanwhile, Pi Network, PI, rose 33% on the day to $0.29 after a listing on Kraken.