Bitcoin was trading above $73,000 Friday evening, but data from the derivatives market suggests traders are becoming more cautious. They’re increasing their protective measures, reducing bets that the price will continue to rise, and focusing on a price range just below the current level, which could create selling pressure.
Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin CME options open interest shows puts dominating since late 2025, with calls holding a 57% edge on Deribit in April 2026.
- Total BTC options OI reached $30B+, while Binance leads futures at $9.31B and CME ranks second at $8.74B across 11 tracked exchanges.
- Max pain levels on Deribit, OKX, and Binance cluster near $70K to $72K ahead of the April 24, 2026, expiration with the heaviest notional value.
Futures Open Interest: Binance Leads, CME Close Behind
Total bitcoin futures open interest (OI) across major exchanges sits in the tens of billions, according to coinglass.com stats. Binance currently holds the top spot at 127.39K BTC, roughly $9.31 billion, accounting for 16.86% of the tracked market. CME lands in second at 119.64K BTC ($8.74B, 15.83%), followed by MEXC at 91.65K BTC ($6.7B). Gate, Bybit, and OKX round out the next tier at $4.57 billion, $4.70 billion, and $3.23 billion, respectively.
Over the past 24 hours, most exchanges posted positive open interest changes. Gate led at +9.04%, Bybit came in at +7.84%, and Kucoin ticked up +7.44%. BingX was a notable outlier, showing a 4-hour change of -15.70%, suggesting some position unwinding on that platform. The broader trend, though, points upward, with OI recovering off the lows hit in January and February 2026.
Futures Open Interest in Context: Off the Peak, Rebuilding
The longer view on exchange bitcoin futures open interest shows just how much ground has been covered. From roughly $30 billion in mid-2024, total OI ran to nearly $100 billion by late 2025 when bitcoin hit all-time highs above $120K.
The subsequent drawdown pulled OI back hard, bottoming near $40 billion in early 2026, before the current rebuild toward the $45 billion to $50 billion range. Price and open interest are moving together again, which traders typically read as healthier positioning. Essentially, the market is reforming after the massive Oct. 10 liquidation event last year.
CME Options: A Shrinking Market With a Put Lean
CME bitcoin options open interest tells a story of contraction. The peak in late 2025 saw stacked weekly bars reach 70,000 contracts. By early 2026, that number fell sharply, dropping into the 10,000 to 15,000 contract range by February before a modest bounce in March and April. The current reading sits around 20,000 contracts for the most recent expiry period, a fraction of last year’s highs.
The breakdown of options trades tells a clearer story. Since October 2025, the CME options market has seen a significant increase in put options – which are used to protect against price drops – and a corresponding decrease in call options, which are used for bets on price increases. By December 2025, put option open interest reached almost $285 million and has stayed high through April 2026. Meanwhile, call option exposure has fallen to almost nothing, indicating that traders are focused on protecting their investments rather than speculating on gains.
Options Market Breadth: Deribit Still Dominates
Across all exchanges, total bitcoin options open interest peaked near $30 billion in late 2025 and still hovers in that range today. On Deribit, the biggest bets are positioned around $120,000 by December 2026 and $80,000 by May 2026, with the $80,000 strike also seeing the heaviest single-day trading volume on OKX. Traders are clearly anchoring their targets well above current prices.
The broader options picture leans bullish for now. On Deribit, calls, meaning bets that bitcoin goes higher, outnumber puts, or bets on a price drop, at roughly 57% to 43%. Friday’s trading volume told the same story, with calls taking about 61% of activity versus 39% for puts.
Max Pain: Three Exchanges, One Clear Message
Across major cryptocurrency options exchanges like Deribit, Binance, and OKX, the price level where most traders would experience losses (known as “max pain”) is concentrated between $70,000 and $72,000, particularly for options expiring on April 24, 2026. The April 2026 expiration date on Deribit has the largest amount of open interest, around $8 billion, with the highest concentration of pain points near $72,000. The June 26 expiration also shows significant activity with around $8 billion in open interest, and a max pain point around $75,500, which is expected to decrease towards the end of the year.
Data from Binance and OKX indicates that the price point causing the most pain for options traders currently lies between $70,000 and $72,000. For contracts expiring between April 11th and 13th, this pain point is around $71,000-$72,000. The April 24th contracts, which represent the largest overall position, are centered around $71,500 on Binance and between $70,000 and $75,500 on OKX.
With bitcoin at $73,000 today and max pain concentrated just below at $70,000 to $72,000, options market mechanics alone create a headwind. Whether the spot market respects those levels is a different question, but the derivatives data makes the setup plain.
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2026-04-11 01:29