Bitcoin passed one of the year’s largest options settlement events without the sharp drop some traders had been watching for. About $16 billion in Bitcoin options on Deribit expired at 08:00 UTC on Sept. 25, equal to roughly 37% of the platform’s BTC options open interest at the time. Even so, BTC was still trading around $84,100 to $84,300 by Asian evening hours.
The expiry was large, but that did not mean spot selling
The report says the more meaningful shift may not be the "$16 billion expiry" headline itself. The bigger change is that, after a large set of quarterly contracts disappeared, the market moved into a new phase of gamma positioning rebuild.
Data provided by Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers showed that this round of BTC options expiry totaled about $15.9 billion in notional value. Calls accounted for about $9.4 billion and puts about $6.5 billion, leaving the put/call open-interest ratio at roughly 0.69. Overall positioning remained tilted toward calls.
At one point, the market circulated the idea that a $16 billion options expiry could trigger a major shock. But that figure refers to notional contract value, not $16 billion worth of spot BTC changing hands at once. A large share of out-of-the-money options expire worthless, while in-the-money contracts are handled through settlement rules. For that reason, notional expiry size should not be read directly as spot selling pressure.
Under Deribit’s rules, quarterly BTC options expire at 08:00 UTC on the last Friday of the quarter. The final delivery price is based on a TWAP of the Deribit Index over the 30 minutes before expiry.
BTC stayed above $84,000 instead of moving toward the $75,000 max pain level
Another focus before expiry was max pain for this BTC options cycle, which sat around $75,000. Yet BTC stayed near $83,000 to $85,000 before expiry and did not quickly fall toward $75,000 afterward.
As of the evening of Sept. 25 in Taipei time, CoinMarketCap showed BTC at about $84,100. The report says this again shows that max pain is not a price target. It is only a theoretical level derived from open interest, representing the point at which option buyers as a group would see the lowest intrinsic value. When spot trades far from that level, there is no mechanism that forces price to converge on max pain before expiry.
Positive gamma around $85,000 may explain the pre-expiry range
Compared with max pain, gamma may do a better job of explaining why BTC spent so much time near $84,000 to $85,000 before expiry.
Market data from Sept. 24 showed BTC in an overall positive gamma regime, with net gamma exposure at about +$395 million. The largest positive gamma cluster was around $85,000, while the gamma flip level stood near $75,931.
In a positive gamma environment, market makers trying to stay delta-neutral will usually sell hedges when price rises and buy hedges when price falls. That trading pattern can suppress short-term volatility to some extent. In other words, BTC’s narrow range ahead of a major expiry did not necessarily mean market risk had fallen on its own; part of that stability may have come from market-maker hedging flows.
With quarterly contracts gone, the market enters a gamma reset
The biggest structural change now is that quarterly contracts representing about 37% of Deribit BTC options open interest expired at once. Once those contracts roll off, the delta, gamma, and market-maker hedging demand attached to them also disappear, or shift into October and December contracts.
In that sense, a "gamma reset" does not mean BTC is certain to rise. It means a large block of options positions that had been constraining price movement has been cleared out, and the market now has to rebuild its distribution of calls, puts, and gamma exposure.
The report also cited analysis from Economic Times, which said that after the quarterly expiry, a large number of positions either vanished or rolled forward, potentially changing how the market reacts to the next wave of spot buying and selling.
Attention now turns to October and December positioning
Before expiry, a large amount of call open interest was concentrated at $85,000, $90,000, $95,000, and $100,000. The $90,000 to $100,000 range was described as an important overhead positioning zone.
That leaves the next key question elsewhere: not the now-stale September max pain level, but where new October and December options positions will be rebuilt.
If fresh positive gamma clusters again around $85,000, BTC may continue to trade in a range. If gamma-related suppression weakens while spot demand rises at the same time, volatility could expand again. On the other hand, if new positioning gradually shifts toward puts and defensive hedging increases, the gamma reset could also amplify downside swings.
BTC did not collapse after the $16 billion expiry. That only shows the large settlement itself did not create direct selling pressure. By itself, it does not settle the question of what comes next. The next signals to watch are the rebuilt options open interest, the new gamma distribution after expiry, and whether spot flows can keep BTC above $85,000.