A $15.6 billion Bitcoin options expiry is a notional number

Decrypt reported that $15.6 billion in Bitcoin options expire on Friday, September 25, using figures from Deribit. The article is explicit that the $15.6 billion is notional. It is the size of the contracts, not a pile of cash that must be paid out.

Deribit’s levels, as Decrypt relayed them: max pain near $76,000, about $9,000 under a Bitcoin price near $85,000; a concentration of strikes at $70,000; a put-to-call ratio of 0.71, which means more of the open interest is calls than puts. After expiry, the hedges dealers held against those contracts can come off. That can change how the price trades for a session. It does not require the price to go anywhere.

Max pain is the price at which the most options expire worthless. Decrypt notes that it has a mixed record as a predictor. This page is not telling you to buy, sell, or hold Bitcoin, and it is not translating an options print into a price target.