TL;DR

About 21,700 BTC options worth $1.8B expire Friday, Jan. 23 after crypto markets lost about $200B this week.
Put/call is 0.75; max pain near $92,000. OI peaks at $100,000 ($2B) and at $85,000 and $90,000 ($1.1B).
About 118,000 ETH options ($346M) expire; BTC still below $90,000 after $88,560 low, ETH near $2,950, altcoins down 2% to 3%.

Bitcoin options expiry is back on the risk calendar, with about 21,700 BTC contracts expiring on Friday, Jan. 23, worth roughly $1.8 billion in notional value. With spot markets sliding this week, the expiry reads like a stress test for positioning and liquidity. The batch is smaller than last week’s, as derivatives activity remains sluggish. Crypto markets have lost around $200 billion since the week began amid escalating trade wars, Japanese bond turmoil, and delays in US crypto legislation. Traders are watching whether spot steadies or breaks again into settlement.

Options Expiry Alert
At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, over $2.1B in crypto options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: $1.81B notional | Put/Call: 0.74 | Max Pain: $92K $ETH: $337M notional | Put/Call: 0.88 | Max Pain: $3.25K

Expiry positioning is tightly clustered around key… pic.twitter.com/SnFHiwk1nN

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) January 22, 2026

Expiry positioning and key strikes

Coinglass data puts the BTC put/call ratio at 0.75, implying more calls than puts into the cut, but strike placement still drives outcomes. Max pain is near $92,000, so a sub-$92K spot level would leave many contracts out of the money. Open interest is heaviest at the $100,000 strike, with about $2 billion there on Deribit. Bearish clusters also show roughly $1.1 billion in open interest at $85,000 and $90,000. Total BTC options open interest across exchanges is about $36 billion, climbing since early year.

Deribit said positioning is tightly clustered around key strikes, keeping spot sensitive into the cut, and cited geopolitics and trade policy uncertainty as the macro backdrop supporting hedging demand across desks. Operationally, that setup can keep volumes reactive and price swings abrupt when headlines land, especially near settlement. Alongside BTC, about 118,000 ether options are expiring with roughly $346 million notional, max pain at $3,250, and a put/call ratio of 0.86. Total ETH options open interest across exchanges is around $8 billion. Combined expiries total about $2.1 billion.

Spot markets reflect the tension between hedges and outright selling. The tape suggests sellers are strengthening, even as buyers defend key levels into expiry. Total market capitalization was down 1% on the day, wiping out gains made so far this year. Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $88,560 before rebounding to $89,500, yet it failed to reclaim $90,000 in the past 24 hours. Ether slipped below $3,000 and traded near $2,950, with no reclaim attempt for 12 hours. Altcoins were mostly red, shedding another 2% to 3%.

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Filed under: News - @ January 23, 2026 12:27 pm