Bitcoin put-call skew widens to -11.3% as $10.6B options expiry looms

Bitcoin's 25-delta put-call skew hit -11.3% on seven-day contracts, the most bearish in a month, as traders hedged ahead of a $10.6 billion Deribit expiry.

"Puts continue to command a meaningful premium over calls across all major tenors," analysts at Greeks.live said.

The skew turned sharply negative on short-dated contracts, with the one-day tenor at -10.7% and the one-month at -9.6%, according to the derivatives data provider. Bitcoin traded near $60,200 at the time of writing, down 2% in the past 24 hours, while ether slid 4.43% to $1,580. Both assets sit well below their max pain levels of $70,000 and $2,000, respectively — the prices where the most options expire worthless. Bitcoin's put-to-call ratio stood at 0.63, with 92,154 calls against 57,652 puts, while ether's ratio ran lower at 0.50.

The expiry lands during a broad crypto downturn that pushed Bitcoin to $59,175 overnight, its lowest since early June, before a bounce fueled by strong Micron Technology earnings lifted it back toward $61,500. Nearly $1 billion in futures positions were liquidated across crypto majors during the slide, with roughly $430 million in Bitcoin-tracked long positions wiped out, per Coinglass. The next catalyst is Thursday's PCE inflation print, the Federal Reserve's preferred price gauge, which could determine whether sellers extend the search for a floor.

Greeks.live placed negative gamma between $60,000 and $64,000, the band where Bitcoin currently trades, a structure that can keep price action choppy near current levels through expiry. Positive gamma spans $67,000 to $82,000, with clusters near $67,000, $71,000, $75,000, and $80,000, driven by June, July, and September contracts.

Below $58,000, roughly $1.6 billion in leveraged long positions sit clustered, per Coinglass, meaning a break there would accelerate the drop. Major market-maker Wintermute had flagged $59,000 as the bear-market low to watch in a Tuesday note — a level that held during the overnight slide but remains under pressure.

Deribit cautioned against reading too much into the max pain pull, noting that recent quarterly expiries have shown limited evidence of a consistent pinning effect ahead of settlement. Still, with both assets stuck below max pain heading into Friday's settlement, the next sessions may show whether sellers extend the search for a bottom or buyers finally step in.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.