$7.5 Billion Crypto Options Expire: Bitcoin’s Fight at $75K Max Pain

The max pain level—the price where the greatest number of contracts would expire worthless—sat at $75,000, roughly 3% below Bitcoin’s spot price of around $77,300 in the days leading up to Friday . The $75,000 strike carried the largest concentration of puts, with roughly $390–394 million in notional value, while the $80,000 call strike dominated upside bets with about $532 million .

Bitcoin spent the week fighting to hold above $76,000, repeatedly failing to reclaim the $80,000 level. On May 26, spot traded near $77,343, but the gravitational pull of the max pain point kept the market in a tight range with no conviction to break higher .

Ethereum Options

Ethereum entered the expiry in a precarious position, having just broken below $2,000 for the first time since March 2026 and trading around $1,990 . Deribit data placed ETH’s max pain level near that same $2,000 mark, creating a strong magnetic effect as the expiry approached .

While a specific ETH put/call ratio was not broken out in available sources, the combined market ratio of 0.85–0.86 reflected the broader indecision .

Bearish Conditions Built Through May

Implied Volatility Hits a Nine-Month Low

The Bitcoin Volmex Implied Volatility Index collapsed to 36.11 on May 25, its lowest reading since September 2025 and near the weakest level since 2023 . This decline signaled a sharp drop in near-term speculative demand, with lower trading volumes and a rotation of capital into altcoins compressing options premiums and reducing hedging activity across centralized exchanges .

Preceding Week’s Expiry Pinned the Range

On May 3, Bitcoin options worth roughly $3.7 billion expired with a max pain near $78,000 and spot holding at about $78,418—a classic “pinning” event that kept BTC in a narrow band . That expiry showed a 58% calls-to-42% puts split, marginally more bullish than the May 29 positioning .

CryptoQuant Bull Score Collapses to Extremely Bearish

CryptoQuant’s Bull Score Index fell from 40 to 20, a level the firm classifies as "extremely bearish" and structurally identical to readings recorded during the February–March 2026 period when Bitcoin traded between $60,000 and $66,000 . The on-chain analytics firm warned that readings below 40 have historically aligned with prolonged bear markets, and the price structure now mirrors the March 2022 bear market pattern after a decisive rejection at the 200-day moving average .

Deribit Open Interest Surpasses BlackRock’s IBIT

In a striking market-structure shift, Deribit’s Bitcoin options open interest reached $31.3 billion ahead of the expiry, overtaking the AUM of BlackRock’s IBIT spot ETF . The milestone underscored a market increasingly driven by institutional hedging and leveraged derivatives positioning rather than spot accumulation .

Institutional Defensive Positioning

Institutions pulled nearly $2.7 billion from U.S. spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs over the two weeks through May 25, including roughly $1.26 billion in Bitcoin redemptions that pushed BTC ETF AUM below $100 billion . Ethereum ETFs suffered a particularly brutal stretch, recording net outflows for 10 consecutive trading sessions beginning May 9, with cumulative withdrawals exceeding $60 million led by BlackRock’s ETHA and Fidelity’s FETH . That streak extended to at least 12 days by May 27, with an additional $67.1 million exiting the products .

Bitcoin’s Prolonged Drawdown

By late May 2026, Bitcoin had declined roughly 50% from its all-time high above $150,000, trading in the mid-$70,000s after being repeatedly rejected at the 200-day moving average near $82,400 . Analysts highlighted $75,000 as the critical near-term support—breaking below it would open a path toward $60,000, the February 2026 crash low .

Ethereum Under Pressure

ETH’s break below $2,000 was compounded by a major long liquidation event on the Hyperliquid perpetuals platform, which accelerated the deleveraging cascade in derivatives markets. Sentiment also suffered from the departure of eight senior Ethereum Foundation researchers throughout 2026, raising concerns about the network’s development roadmap and leadership stability.

The Broader Picture

The May 29 expiry crystallized a deeply defensive market. Implied volatility at nine-month lows, record-breaking ETF outflows, an on-chain Bull Score in extremely bearish territory, and both major assets trading below key technical levels created an environment where the $75,000 max pain level functioned as a gravity well. Bitcoin held just above it, but the market generated no conviction to push toward $80,000—leaving the crypto complex in a precarious equilibrium shaped by institutional hedging, not spot demand.