Where Are the Big Bitcoin Options Bets?
Options traders leave footprints: open interest piles up at the strikes they care about, and market makers hedging those positions can dampen or amplify price moves. This page reads those footprints daily: where the walls are, where dealer hedging flips direction, and how expensive protection is right now.
In the 2026-09-03 snapshot, the biggest call wall is at $80K and the biggest put wall at $60K. Implied volatility (DVOL) is 37.2.
Where are the walls?
Each bar is open interest at one strike. Big call walls often act as magnets or ceilings near expiry; big put walls mark the levels traders pay to defend.
Where does dealer hedging flip?
Net gamma exposure per strike: above zero, market makers hedge against the move and calm the market; below zero, their hedging pushes in the same direction and amplifies it. (> 0 = stabilizing · < 0 = amplifying)
How expensive is protection?
DVOL is the options market's 30-day volatility forecast, like the VIX for crypto. High readings mean fear is priced in; unusually low readings mean insurance is cheap.
What does the market expect next?
At-the-money implied volatility by expiry. An upward slope is normal; a hump around one date means the market is pricing a specific event there.
Implied volatility surface
Mark IV by expiry and moneyness (ln(strike/spot)), OI-weighted within each cell, from the daily Deribit chain. Hot cells are where the market pays most for protection or upside; an empty cell means no listed strike sits there, not zero volatility.
| Expiry | Days | ATM IV % | 25d put IV | 25d call IV | Skew (pp) | Butterfly (pp) | Strikes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4SEP26 | 1 | 28.7 | 28.5 | 30.9 | -2.31 | +0.98 | 38 |
| 5SEP26 | 2 | 31.3 | 31.2 | 32.4 | -1.23 | +0.51 | 29 |
| 6SEP26 | 3 | 28.7 | 28.8 | 30.1 | -1.23 | +0.73 | 26 |
| 11SEP26 | 8 | 31.2 | 32.1 | 32.4 | -0.28 | +1.02 | 27 |
| 18SEP26 | 15 | 33.9 | 35.2 | 35.0 | +0.22 | +1.20 | 21 |
| 25SEP26 | 22 | 34.2 | 35.5 | 35.4 | +0.14 | +1.27 | 65 |
| 30OCT26 | 57 | 35.9 | 37.8 | 36.4 | +1.36 | +1.20 | 53 |
| 27NOV26 | 85 | 37.6 | 39.3 | 38.2 | +1.16 | +1.10 | 44 |
| 25DEC26 | 113 | 38.6 | 40.2 | 38.9 | +1.33 | +0.97 | 59 |
| 26MAR27 | 204 | 40.0 | 42.0 | 40.7 | +1.26 | +1.32 | 51 |
| 25JUN27 | 295 | 41.7 | 43.3 | 42.3 | +1.06 | +1.12 | 50 |
Deltas are Black-Scholes with each instrument's own mark IV; the 25-delta points are linear interpolations between the two nearest listed strikes. No surface model is fitted, so a thin expiry shows as thin.
ATM IV and 25-delta skew, constant 30 days
The headline pair interpolated to a constant 30-day maturity, recorded daily. Skew is the 25-delta put IV minus the 25-delta call IV in percentage points: positive means downside protection costs more than upside.
What happened after days like this?
Every recorded day is grouped by where this metric sat; each band shows the median BTC move that followed. Distribution, not prediction.
Today sits in the "Крайне низкий" band of 5 years of daily records. Days like this led to a median +0.0% BTC move over the next 7 days (n=391), about the same as any other day (+0.1%). No edge either way, and we say so.
| Band | Range | Days | Next 24h | Next 72h | Next 7d | Up next 7d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Крайне низкийtoday | 32.4 … 43.1 | 391 | +0.0% | +0.0% | +0.0% | 49% |
| Ниже среднего | 43.1 … 52.5 | 398 | +0.0% | +0.2% | +0.3% | 53% |
| Средний | 52.5 … 59.7 | 398 | +0.0% | +0.3% | +0.7% | 56% |
| Выше среднего | 59.7 … 77.4 | 398 | -0.1% | +0.1% | -0.2% | 48% |
| Крайне высокий | 77.4 … 156.2 | 397 | +0.1% | +0.2% | -0.2% | 50% |
| All days (base rate) | 1982 | +0.0% | +0.2% | +0.1% | 51% |
Median BTC move after each band. Records since 2021-03-24 (1989 days). History, not a forecast.
Methodology and honest caveats
The snapshot covers listed crypto options and is taken once a day at 00:25 UTC: per-strike open interest, mark implied volatility and the DVOL index. Walls are simply the strikes with the largest call and put open interest.
Gamma exposure uses the standard Black-Scholes gamma of every open contract and the market convention that dealers are net long calls and net short puts. That convention is an assumption, not an observation: nobody outside the market makers knows their true book. Read GEX as a map of where hedging pressure could concentrate, not a forecast.
The zero-gamma level is the spot price at which total net GEX would cross zero. Below it, dealer hedging tends to chase price (amplifying moves); above it, hedging leans against price (dampening moves).
FAQ
What is a call wall or put wall?
A strike where an unusually large amount of option open interest sits. Near expiry, price often gravitates toward big walls because market makers hedge the positions there; a large put wall also shows the level traders are paying to defend.
What is gamma exposure (GEX) in plain terms?
When market makers sell options, they hedge by trading the underlying. Gamma measures how fast that hedge has to change as price moves. When net gamma is positive, their hedging pushes against the move and the market tends to be calmer; when it is negative, their hedging pushes with the move and swings get bigger.
What is DVOL?
A 30-day forward-looking volatility index for crypto, built from option prices the same way the VIX is built from S&P 500 options. DVOL around 40 means the options market expects roughly a 40% annualized move; spikes mark fear, unusual lows mean protection is cheap.
How current is this data?
The option chain snapshot updates once a day at 00:25 UTC and the page notes its snapshot date. Positioning moves slowly day to day, but for intraday trading around events, treat this as the morning map rather than a live feed.