What is the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market?
An option is a contract granting the right to buy (call) or sell (put) an asset at a set price (the strike) before a date (the expiry). Most crypto options trade on Deribit. This tool aggregates that market live and shows it cleanly: where positions concentrate, what volatility the market is pricing in, and when large blocks of contracts expire.
What is the options wall (open interest by strike)?
Open interest is the number of live contracts. Spreading it across strike prices reveals the "zones" where calls and puts pile up. It is a snapshot of market positioning; it does not guarantee the price will head anywhere.
What is Max Pain?
Max Pain is the strike price at which the most options expire worthless — where option buyers as a whole would lose the most. It is an arithmetic fact computed from each strike's open interest; it is not a price prediction, although it gets discussed a lot around expiries.
What does the put/call ratio say?
It is put open interest divided by call open interest. Above 1 there are more puts (often downside hedges); below, more calls. It describes positioning bias, not a recommendation.
What is implied volatility (DVOL)?
Deribit's DVOL summarizes the annualized volatility that option prices imply for the next 30 days. It rises when the market expects sharp moves (fear) and falls in calm. It is what the market is pricing in, not a directional forecast.
Frequently asked questions
Does Max Pain predict the price of Bitcoin?
No. Max Pain is the strike where most options would expire worthless given current open interest: an arithmetic fact about positioning. It does not predict price nor is it a recommendation; the real price depends on market supply and demand.
Why do large expiries matter?
On quarterly expiries (March, June, September and December) a huge volume of contracts lapses at once, which tends to increase market activity and attention. This page's calendar shows how much expires on each date and when.
What does high or low implied volatility mean?
A high DVOL means options are expensive because the market expects wide moves; a low one, the opposite. It is a descriptive measure of market nervousness, not a buy or sell signal.
Where does the data come from and how often is it updated?
From Deribit's public API, where most BTC and ETH options trade. Open interest and aggregates refresh every few minutes; the volatility history is stored in our own database to compute percentiles.
Do you store visitor data?
No. Only public options-market data is stored. No visitor preference or personal data reaches the server.