Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin futures open interest fell 4.20% in 24 hours to $58.44B, led by a 35.92% OI collapse at BingX.
- CME posted a rare 2.61% OI gain while put options dominated its options book, signaling institutional hedging demand.
- Max pain for the April 24 expiry sits near $72K on Deribit and OKX, roughly $4K below Bitcoin’s current spot price.
Bitcoin Futures and Options Markets Signal Defensive Positioning as April 2026 Expiries Loom
According to stats logged by coinglass.com, total futures open interest across all tracked exchanges stood at 768,160 BTC as of Saturday morning. That number has been grinding lower since bitcoin crested above $125,000 in late 2025, and the current reading reflects a market that has shed considerable leveraged exposure on the way down.
CME ranked first in open interest by USD value, holding $10.01 billion across 131,670 BTC in outstanding futures contracts. Binance edged CME in raw BTC terms at 134,200 BTC ($10.21B), but the two exchanges diverged sharply on 24-hour direction. CME posted a gain of 2.61%, the lone major venue in positive territory Saturday, while Binance shed 2.88%. BingX logged the steepest single-day drop at negative 35.92%, a move that points to forced liquidations or a large institutional exit rather than gradual de-risking.
MEXC and Gate.io round out a crowded mid-tier field. MEXC held 83,660 BTC ($6.36B) at a 10.88% market-rate share, while Gate.io carried 62,280 BTC ($4.74B) but posted the second-worst 24-hour decline at negative 10.49%. The aggregate OI-to-volume ratio across all exchanges came in at 0.8866, a figure that suggests liquidity remains functional even as open interest (OI) contracts.
On the CME options side, the put-call dynamic deserves attention. Cryptoquant data shows that since bitcoin’s November 2025 high, put open interest in USD terms has consistently exceeded calls, a posture that reflects institutional demand for downside protection. The stacked-by-position data this weekend shows puts towering over calls across nearly every expiry cycle from late 2025 through April 2026. When bitcoin was trading above $100,000, the two sides were more balanced. That balance is gone.
The CME options stacked-by-expiration stats reinforce the same story. Total open interest peaked around 70,000 contracts in late November and December 2025, then collapsed as the price dropped. Today’s reading sits closer to 25,000 contracts, with the bulk expiring within one to two months. Near-term expiries dominate; the “expiry in 1m-2m” bucket makes up most of the current stack, meaning a large portion of existing options positions will clear by mid-June.
Deribit’s options market tells a slightly different story. As of Saturday, calls held a 56.80% share of total options open interest at 271,909 BTC, compared with puts at 206,770 BTC (43.20%). The 24-hour volume split was nearly identical, calls at 57.84% versus puts at 42.16%. The most widely held contract on Deribit is a bet that bitcoin will trade above $80,000 by May 29, with 6,604 BTC in open interest.
Close behind it is a December 2026 contract targeting $120,000, 6,587 BTC worth of optimism that bitcoin still has a big run left before year’s end. The most actively traded contract over the past 24 hours is the April 24 put at the $70,000 strike, with 1,589 BTC changing hands. In plain terms, traders are paying for insurance against bitcoin falling another $6,000 before next Friday.
Max pain data across three major platforms paints a consistent short-term picture. On Deribit, the April 24 expiry carries the heaviest notional value, and max pain for that contract sits around $71,500-$72,000. Binance’s April 24 max pain is near $74,000 with a dominant notional bar. OKX places its April 24 max pain at approximately $72,000 as well. With bitcoin at $76,185 today, spot is trading above max pain on all three platforms, which, if the theory holds, creates gravitational pull toward the downside into next Friday’s expiry.
Total bitcoin options open interest across all venues recently bottomed near $6.27 billion before recovering to current levels, according to Coinglass metrics. The broader data from early 2024 through April 2026 shows that options OI broadly tracked the BTC price on the way up and the way down. The current options market has contracted meaningfully from its peak, consistent with the futures data, but it sure hasn’t collapsed, which suggests ongoing institutional engagement rather than full retreat.
The broader picture this week is one of a derivatives market recalibrating around a lower price range. Futures open interest has contracted, but it is rebounding slowly from the lows seen in March. CME options lean put-heavy. Near-term expirations dominate the stack. Max pain sits below spot. Deribit call volume still edges out puts, but the most-traded contracts by volume are downside hedges.
With that said, bitcoin at $76,185 this weekend is holding a range, but the derivatives positioning around it suggests traders are not yet convinced the low is in.
