More than $14 billion in Bitcoin options expire this Friday, with the market closely watching the $75,000 “magnet price level”

The Bitcoin market is set to see a highly watched derivatives event this week. Crypto options exchange Deribit will hold an options expiry settlement worth about $14.16 billion this Friday, and market structure suggests that $75,000 could become the key “magnet” price level around this expiry.
Deribit’s rules show that options typically expire at 08:00 UTC on Fridays, which converts to UTC+8 (Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore time), meaning settlement will occur at 16:00 on Friday, March 27.
As of the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $71,617. The intraday high is $71,634 and the low is $68,943, implying there is still about $3,400 between the current price and $75,000. If the market truly moves toward a pattern aimed at the “Max Pain Price,” the next two trading days could still come with significant volatility.
The batch of Bitcoin options set to expire on Friday totals nearly four-tenths of Deribit’s entire open interest, making it one of this month’s most important—and most representative—risk events. Based on Deribit contract specifications, one Bitcoin options contract corresponds to 1 BTC. Therefore, when a large number of positions are concentrated on a single expiry date, hedging, position rolling, and closing activities by traders may amplify volatility in the spot and futures markets as settlement approaches.

The so-called “Max Pain Price” refers to the price level at which, at expiry, option buyers have the smallest profit and the largest loss, or where option sellers have the smallest loss and the largest profit. The “Max Pain Price” level for this expiry is around $75,000 (as shown in the chart above). Deribit says that as market makers carry out hedging and large options sellers attempt to bring their payout amount down to the minimum, this level could become a “magnet” price level for Bitcoin’s price.
According to Deribit Business Development Director Jean-David Péquignot, “Bitcoin is currently trading close to $71,000. The $75,000 Max Pain Price represents a kind of pull. Based on historical experience, this will encourage market makers to perform Delta hedging, thereby pushing the price toward the strike price that expires worthless.”
However, whether the market will definitely be “pulled” toward $75,000 still depends on the direction of spot buying, macro risk appetite, and hedging flows before expiry. Deribit’s official explanation notes that the final options settlement price is not a single moment’s price, but the Deribit Index 30-minute time-weighted average price (TWAP) from 07:30 to 08:00 UTC, which converts to UTC+8 as the average price from 15:30 to 16:00 on March 27. This means that what truly influences the settlement outcome is market performance during that half-hour window at the boundary between late Asia on Friday and early Europe.
Judging from recent market sentiment, on one hand, funds are watching whether Bitcoin can extend its rebound; on the other hand, they have not completely abandoned the need for hedging. Demand for downside protection once rose to a new high, reflecting that even if Bitcoin has recently held above $70,000, the derivatives market remains on high alert for short-term fluctuations. This structure of “prices rebounding while protective buying remains strong” also makes this large expiry especially worth monitoring.