How Will the Huge $15B End-of-Quarter Crypto Options Expiry Move the Markets Today?

The end of the week, the month, and the first quarter of the year have arrived, and with it, a large collection of Bitcoin and Ether options contracts will expire.

About 195,400 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, Mar. This event is bigger than usual, it is the end of the month and the end of the quarter, so there may be some volatility in the existing markets.

Crypto prices have been low over the past week, with the entire currency returning to Monday’s levels.

Bitcoin Options Expiration

This week’s largest batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.61, meaning there are more longs than shorts expiring. The maximum pain is about $75,000, according to Coinglass, which is much higher than the current prices, so many may be out of money when it expires.

Open interest (OI), or the amount or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains very high at the $60,000 strike price on Deribit, with $1.6 billion in bets. OI’s total BTC options across all exchanges have been rising this month, reaching $45 billion.

“The full story of the expiration of $17B quarterly options on March 27 at Deribit was covered by the headlines coming out of Washington and Tehran,” said Deribit chief commercial officer Jean-David Pequignot in a letter shared no. CryptoPotato.

“Bitcoin’s recent rally back to $71k was driven by President Trump’s decision to postpone strikes on Iran’s power plants for five days. This communications window is expiring almost as soon as Friday’s options expire, fueling local volatility in the currency structure.”

“Today’s block trading data on Deribit shows that ‘smart money’ is a strong position,” notes Greeks Live.

“Many institutions have closed their positions expiring tomorrow and are putting themselves in the position to choose over-the-counter (OTM) calls in June and September.”

🚨 Quarterly Options Expiration Alert | 08:00 UTC on Friday
$15.58B in crypto options will expire tomorrow on Deribit. Biggest expiration in 2026 so far.$BTC: 195,398 contracts | $13.46B mental | Big Pain: $75K | Install/Dial: 0.61$ETH: 1,026,462 contracts | $2.12B in consideration |… pic.twitter.com/Ap70thX9dI

– Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) March 26, 2026

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Outside of today’s batch of Bitcoin options, about 1 million Ethereum contracts also expire, with an average price of $2.1 billion, a maximum pain at $2,300, and a put/call ratio of 0.57. Total OI ETH options on all exchanges are around $9 billion.

This brings the total symbolic value of crypto options expiring to $15.5 billion in the largest expiration event since the end of December’s $27 billion contract.

Spot Market Outlook

Spot markets ended the week in the red with a 3% decline to $2.44 trillion in market capitalization. Bitcoin continues to be weak, going back to $68,000 the previous day, with a small recovery during Asian trading on Friday morning.

Ether prices are at high risk of falling below $2,000 again over the weekend and were trading at $2,070 at the time of writing.