Bitcoin News

Story: Bitcoin and Ethereum Drop Toward $62K ‘Max Pain’ as $1.75B in Options Expire

By Julie Binoche

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What Traders Actually Did. The dominant move heading into this expiry wasn't bullish. Far from it.

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Why $1.75B Matters for Near-Term Price Action. When you've got this much notional value in options expiring at once, the aftermath can get messy.

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What Comes After the Expiry. So what happens now? Unclear, honestly. The expiry itself is done. The $1.

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$1.75 billion. That's how much in Bitcoin and Ethereum options just expired, and the number alone tells you something about where trader heads are right now. Not chasing upside.

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The so-called "max pain" level sitting around $62,000 for Bitcoin has been the number everyone's watching.

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The dominant move heading into this expiry wasn't bullish. Far from it. Traders leaned hard into downside protection — puts, hedges, anything that softens the blow if prices slide.

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It's a defensive crouch. And it's been the dominant posture for a while now.

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Momentum has been weak. That's the blunt reality sitting underneath all of this. Bitcoin hasn't been able to string together the kind of sustained buying pressure that would make…

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Short-term call selling, specifically, is worth unpacking a bit more. It's not just bearish — it's a statement about time horizon.

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More context: Bitcoin Eyes $62K Floor as $1.4 Billion Options Expiry Collides With Treasury Yield Surge

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And that's kind of where the market is sitting. Not panicking. But not optimistic either.

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The broader crypto market has been dealing with a stretch of murky sentiment. No single catalyst has emerged to flip the narrative convincingly bullish.

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So what happens now? Unclear, honestly. The expiry itself is done. The $1.75 billion in contracts has settled.

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The preference for downside hedges tends to linger. It reflects a genuine lack of confidence in a near-term breakout, and that sentiment doesn't reset just because one options…

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More context: Bitcoin and Ethereum Face Weekend Technical Tests

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