Bitcoin’s $2.24 billion Friday options expiry teased a reversal then fell to $76k again

Bitcoin entered Deribit’s September 11 options expiry, showed a brief rebound after settlement, and then slipped again before the post‑expiry window closed.

Price movement around expiry

Across Deribit’s BTC perpetual, Coinbase spot and Kraken spot markets, Bitcoin fell roughly 0.16 %–0.18 % between 07:00 UTC and 08:00 UTC. After settlement at 08:00 UTC, the price rose about 0.19 %–0.21 % by 09:00 UTC, but the gain was not sustained. Between 08:00 UTC and 10:00 UTC the Deribit perpetual slipped 0.014 %, Coinbase fell 0.025 % and Kraken lost 0.038 %, leaving Bitcoin slightly below its expiry‑time level on all three venues.

Expiry details

At 06:40 UTC a market‑data snapshot showed the expiring Bitcoin options valued at roughly $2.24 billion, with about $1.40 billion in calls and $844 million in puts. Deribit’s official delivery price was $77,234, calculated as a 30‑minute time‑weighted average of the exchange’s Bitcoin index from 07:30 UTC to 08:00 UTC, sampled every four seconds.

During the European afternoon session Bitcoin dipped to around $76,000 before climbing back toward $77,500.

Comparison with prior research

A peer‑reviewed study of 1,059 Deribit expiry days (January 2021 – December 2023) found a tendency for Bitcoin to fall in the hour before expiry and reverse in the following two hours when at‑the‑money open interest was in the top decile and a reconstructed cumulative gamma proxy was negative. The study did not link market‑maker positioning to total open interest or put/call ratios.

For the September 11, 2026 expiry, three model‑based dashboards (Optionly, CryptoGamma and ByKaranteli) did not indicate a negative cumulative gamma proxy near spot, suggesting the historical pattern did not fully materialize.