Bitcoin options max pain fails; $2.5B July 31 call bet nears deadline

Published: 2026-07-26 15:40:50 |

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed near $64,000 despite two back-to-back large Deribit options expiries clearing Friday and the prior week. The first expiry referenced ~19,000 BTC options worth about $1.2B notional, with Deribit placing “max pain” at $64,500; BTC settled near $64,140. A prior similar expiry had a different max-pain level ($63,000) and BTC still failed to trend, weakening the idea that max pain was “pinning” price. Spot and derivatives flows looked thin on both sides. CryptoQuant-style data showed sellers were the ones crossing the spread. Leveraged longs were liquidated more than shorts (about $45.9M vs $7.4M). Futures/perpetual open interest rose to ~$22.35B, while funding stayed near neutral (average ~0.0038%). US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw outflows of ~$225.2M on Thursday (with BlackRock’s IBIT contributing ~$202.5M). The trade still alive is a concentrated July 31 structure worth about $2.5B gross notional across $70,000 and $72,000 call strikes at Deribit. It pays if BTC finishes above $70,000 but stops once BTC clears $72,000. Hitting $70,000 requires roughly a 9% move in six days; Deribit probabilities show ~14.5% for merely touching $70,000 and ~4.1% for reaching $72,000. Next catalysts are the Fed meeting (July 28–29) and the July 31 call-heavy expiry. With BTC far from $70,000, the market is set for volatility if spot demand reappears.

Neutral

Although the $2.5B July 31 call structure can create upside volatility if BTC demand strengthens, the article’s core signal is that BTC price is currently range-bound: two major max-pain expiries passed with no directional follow-through, and spot/derivatives indicators show thin two-sided demand (bigger long liquidations, near-neutral funding, ETF outflows). This combination typically sustains chop rather than a sustained trend. In the short term, traders may front-run the July 31 expiry and the Fed wording risk, increasing intraday swings and gamma-driven moves around key strikes ($65k, $72k). In the long term, the lack of strong hedging-to-price transmission from max pain plus subdued leverage suggests the market needs fresh spot inflows to break out. Overall, the setup is catalyst-driven but not yet trend-confirming, so the expected impact is neutral.