Open interest in Bitcoin futures across all exchanges reached $61.9 billion on Thursday, with traders on either side of the market hovering at $81,500 per coin as of 3 p.m. ET. Options data from Deribit, OKX, and Binance points to $80,000 as the level at which most contracts expire worthless, and this number is notable for several upcoming expirations.
Important points:
- Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) reached $61.9 billion across all exchanges on May 14th, with Binance holding a 19.05% market share.
- CME’s put-heavy option book suggests institutional hedging, with calls leading Deribit and OKX volume 57% to 43%.
- Deribit’s June 26 expiration has a notional value of $14.52 billion, making it the heaviest options event of the summer.
CME tops futures leaderboard with $9.72 billion — here’s what institutional money is doing
Total futures open interest was 759,550. $BTCBinance holds the largest share with 144,730 $BTC The notional amount is $11.79 billion, representing 19.05% of the global market. CME was ranked No. 1 on another criterion. The OI/24h volume ratio reached 2.0071, the highest on the board, indicating deep institutional positioning compared to daily trading activity. CME futures open interest stood at 119,240. $BTCworth $9.72 billion, 15.69% of the total market share.
In the broader picture for futures, 24-hour open interest increased by 1.61% across all exchanges, with the 4-hour move at +3.72%. BingX stood out as the biggest single-day gainer on the leaderboard, with a 17.81% increase in 24-hour open interest. Kucoin moved in the opposite direction, reducing its open interest by 17.25% during the same period, which was the steepest single-day decline among the major platforms.
57% calls, 42% puts: Bitcoin options traders remain bullish
On the options side, call and put skew favored the bulls. According to Coinglass.com statistics, global options open interest stood at 272,501.92. $BTC Call to 204,098.61 $BTC For puts, the ratio was 57.18% vs. 42.82%. The 24-hour call volume breakdown leans heavily toward calls. 70% vs. 30%, or 58,825.09 $BTC Busy and 25,211.63 $BTC With a put. Deribit’s December 25, 2026 $120,000 call held the highest open interest rank at 6,980.8. $BTCthe $75,000 put on May 29 ranked 4th at 6,226.2. $BTC.
Total open interest in Bitcoin options reached nearly $40 billion, up from the mid-2024 low of $14.68 billion. The statistic closely tracks the spot price, which essentially peaked at nearly $120,000 before falling along with the correction that lifted Bitcoin towards below $65,000 earlier this year. The recovery above $80,000 brought option OI back into the $40 billion range.
The maximum pain levels for Deribit, OKX, and Binance all cluster in the $78,000-$81,000 range for short-term expirations. According to OKX’s maximum pain data, there was a level near $80,000 on May 15th, a drop towards $75,000 on May 29th, and then a recovery on June 26th. The total notional amount accumulated on the May 29 OKX expiration reached $1.24 billion, making it the heaviest statistic on the spread.
Deribit’s maximum pain curve follows a similar arc. May 15th is around $80,500, the curve drops to $75,000 around May 29th, and then returns to around $80,000 on June 26th. Notional volume for the Deribit June 26 expiration is over $14.52 billion, dwarfing other maturities on the board. Binance exhibits a different shape, with maximum pain peaking around $85,000 on the June 5th contract and then fading towards $78,000 as the expiration date extends further.
Cryptoquant’s CME options data has shown clear structural changes over the past year. Open interest in options built up to expiry reached nearly 70,000 contracts in late 2025 before plummeting as Bitcoin corrected. The economic recovery in 2026 was modest. The current CME OI stores approximately 10,000 contracts in short-term buckets, with expirations of 1-2 months accounting for the majority of the positioning.
CME’s put-versus-call breakdown shows that puts dominated call interest through much of the first quarter of 2026, a period that coincided with Bitcoin trading between $65,000 and $85,000. This put-heavy book for CME reflects the use of regulated options by institutional investors to hedge against the downside rather than chasing upside, a different attitude than what retail-focused platforms like Deribit and OKX show in their volume.
The exchange-level futures open interest chart across all platforms combined showed total OI reaching nearly $62 billion after bottoming out below $30 billion in early 2026. The cycle peaked at nearly $90 billion in late 2025, when Bitcoin was trading near $120,000.
The combined data shows that options traders are bullish on volume but are hedging their open interest and that the market has rebuilt meaningful derivatives exposure since the correction. The biggest pain near $80,000 is giving market makers a clear gravitational pull ahead of this week’s expiry, with $14.52 billion piling up for Deribit’s June expiration, and the summer months have real weight.
