Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 by mid-June, and the June 26 quarterly options expiry now has over $10 billion in contracts set to expire. Roughly 80% of those are out of the money, according to market data. The max-pain level — the price where the most options expire worthless — sits near $74,000, well above the current spot price around $65,000.
The $10 Billion Expiry
The quarterly expiry on June 26 is the next major test for Bitcoin options. With the bulk of exposure sitting on BlackRock's IBIT options and Deribit, dealers have been hedging by trading the underlying asset. Through late 2025, that hedging pinned Bitcoin within narrow ranges. Now, with spot well below max-pain, the unwind could generate real buying or selling pressure. The year-end 2025 expiry was the largest on record — more than half of Deribit's entire book — and this June expiry is shaping up to be another big one.
Options Overtake Futures
By 2025, open interest in Bitcoin options had grown to rival, and at times surpass, open interest in Bitcoin futures. That shift mirrors a broader trend in finance: the drift from ownership toward optionality. Zero-days-to-expiry options now make up well over half of daily S&P 500 index options volume, up from about 5% in 2020. In crypto, IBIT's options book alone is valued at $40 billion. US-listed options volume reached 15.2 billion contracts in 2025, up 26% from a year earlier, with an average daily notional value of around $4 trillion. Retail participation accounts for more than 30% of contract volume and clusters in short-dated bets, while institutions lean on options to hedge everything from rate risk to equity exposure.
Prediction Markets Hit a Record
The derivatives boom extends beyond traditional options. Prediction markets saw a record $31.2 billion in trading volume in May, with industry open interest at around $1.3 billion. Kalshi, the largest platform, closed a $1 billion funding round led by Coatue at a $22 billion valuation, with annualized trading volume reported above $170 billion. But the regulatory picture is shifting: in April, a federal appeals court ruled that sports-event contracts traded on Kalshi qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, placing prediction markets under CFTC jurisdiction.
Tokenized Assets Triple
Meanwhile, tokenized real-world assets excluding stablecoins passed $32 billion in May, roughly tripling in a year. The broader market clears $300 billion once stablecoins are included. It's another sign that the financial system is moving toward programmable, tradable representations of everything.
The June 26 expiry will show whether dealer hedging continues to pin Bitcoin or if a breakout is coming. With 80% of contracts out of the money, the max-pain level suggests many traders are betting on a recovery — but they're running out of time.
