Bitcoin futures open interest across all exchanges hit $61.9 billion on Thursday, May 14, 2026, as traders positioned on both sides of a market trading at $81,500 per coin at 3 p.m. ET. The total represents 759,550 BTC in open contracts. Binance held the largest share with 144,730 BTC ($11.79 billion notional), capturing 19.05% of the global market. By a different measure, CME ranked first with an OI/24h volume ratio of 2.0071, the highest on the board, indicating deep institutional positioning relative to daily trading activity. CME futures open interest stood at 119,240 BTC ($9.72 billion), representing 15.69% of total market share.
Exchange Divergence: BingX Surges, KuCoin Sheds
The broader futures picture showed a 24-hour open interest gain of 1.61% across all exchanges, with a 4-hour move of +3.72%. BingX stood out with a 24-hour open interest jump of 17.81%, the biggest one-day move on the leaderboard. KuCoin moved in the opposite direction, shedding 17.25% of open interest over the same period, the sharpest single-day drop among major platforms.
Options Market: Bullish Skew with Institutional Hedging
On the options side, the call-to-put skew favored bulls. Global options open interest showed 272,501.92 BTC in calls against 204,098.61 BTC in puts, a 57.18% to 42.82% split. The 24-hour volume breakdown leaned even harder toward calls at 70% versus 30% (58,825.09 BTC vs. 25,211.63 BTC). Deribit's Dec. 25, 2026, $120,000 call held the top open interest rank at 6,980.8 BTC, while the May 29 $75,000 put ranked fourth at 6,226.2 BTC.
Total bitcoin options open interest reached roughly $40 billion, up from the $14.68 billion floor seen in mid-2024. The metric closely tracked spot price, essentially peaking near $120,000 before pulling back alongside the correction that carried bitcoin toward $65,000 and lower earlier this year. The recovery back above $80,000 has brought options OI back toward the $40 billion range.
Max Pain Clusters at $80,000; Deribit June Expiry Heavy at $14.52B
Max pain levels across Deribit, OKX, and Binance all cluster in the $78,000–$81,000 range for near-term expirations. OKX max pain data shows levels near $80,000 for May 15, dipping toward $75,000 for May 29 before recovering for the June 26 date. Notional value stacked on the May 29 OKX expiry reached $1.24 billion, the heaviest stat on that spread. Deribit’s max pain curve follows a similar arc: May 15 near $80,500, the curve dips to $75,000 around May 29, then climbs back to roughly $80,000 for June 26. The notional volume at the Deribit June 26 expiry topped $14.52 billion, dwarfing every other expiration date. Binance shows a different shape, with max pain peaking near $85,000 for the June 5 contracts before fading toward $78,000 as expirations stretch further out.
CME Options: Institutions Hedging Downside with Puts
CME options data from CryptoQuant revealed a clear structural shift over the past year. Options open interest stacked by expiration peaked near 70,000 contracts in late 2025 before dropping sharply as bitcoin corrected. The 2026 recovery has been quieter; current CME OI sits around 10,000 contracts in near-term buckets, with the 1–2 month expiry window making up the bulk of positioning. The CME put-versus-call breakdown showed puts dominating call open interest through most of Q1 2026, a period aligned with bitcoin trading between $65,000 and $85,000. That put-heavy book at CME reflects institutional players using regulated options to hedge downside rather than chase upside — a different posture than retail-heavy platforms like Deribit and OKX, which show call dominance on volume.
The exchange-level futures open interest chart showed total OI near $62 billion after bottoming below $30 billion in early 2026. The cycle peak came in late 2025 near $90 billion, when bitcoin traded close to $120,000. Taken together, the data paints a market that has rebuilt meaningful derivatives exposure since the correction, with options traders leaning bullish on volume but hedged on open interest. Max pain near $80,000 gives market makers a clear gravitational pull heading into this week’s expirations, and with $14.52 billion stacked at the Deribit June expiry, the summer months carry real weight.