How are the markets reacting to the $2.6 billion in options expiring today?

It’s the end of another week, which means that crypto options contracts will end with the recovery of the market’s eyes.

About 31,700 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, March 6, with a notional value of about $2.2 billion. This event is much smaller than last week, so it will likely have no effect on the spot markets.

Crypto markets saw some light this week, adding nearly $150 billion to the total market cap since Monday, but things started to cool down again by Friday.

Expiration of Bitcoin options

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 1.7, meaning there are more expiring shorts (puts) than longs (calls). According to Coinglass, the maximum pain point is about $69,000, which is slightly below current spot prices, so many may be out of money after the expiration date.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains the highest at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit as bullish bets dominate. BTC OI options volume across all exchanges rose this month to $41.7 billion.

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.”

“However, options market data shows that selling of call options has dominated trading over the past two days. Despite continued price gains, momentum has slowed.”

March 6 Options Expiration Information

32,000 BTC options ended with a call ratio of 1.69, a maximum pain point of $69,000 and a notional value of $2.3 billion.
184,000 ETH options ended with a call ratio of 0.85, a maximum pain point at $1,950 and a notional value of $380… pic.twitter.com/wIZP4KDhg2

— Greeks.live (@GreeksLive) March 5, 2026

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, about 184,000 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a normal value of $380 million, a maximum strike of $1,950, and a put/call ratio of 0.85. The total ETH OI options across all exchanges are around $7.5 billion.

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This brings the total value of crypto options to around $2.6 billion.

Spot market outlook

Total market capitalization fell 1.2% on the day to $2.49 trillion; however, it remains in the upper bounds of its one-month lateral channel.

Bitcoin hit a four-week high of $74,000 on Thursday, but stalled there and returned to $70,300 at the time of writing. These assets have seen a strong recovery since the outbreak of war in Iran last weekend.

Ether dropped $2,200 on Friday and bounced back 2% on the day to $2,065 in the Asian trading session on Friday morning. Altcoins were mostly flat on the day and failed to move higher this week.