$16 Billion Says the Market Is Positioned for Higher, Not Lower

Friday brings one of the largest options settlements of the year. At 08:00 UTC on 25 September, roughly $16 billion worth of Bitcoin options expire on Deribit, alongside a further $2.1 billion in ETH options. The Bitcoin portion alone accounts for around 37% of Deribit’s entire outstanding open interest, a significant share of the book clearing in a single settlement.

What the Book Actually Shows

Call open interest sits between $9.4 billion and $9.6 billion, against roughly $6.4 billion to $6.5 billion in puts, a put to call ratio of around 0.69, or roughly 1.4 calls for every put. Deribit’s own CEO, Luuk Strijers, described the book plainly as positioning built for higher prices. More tellingly, this isn’t speculative, out of the money hope. Around 55% of that call exposure is already in the money heading into expiry, while puts sit largely worthless, meaning roughly a third of the entire $16 billion book is currently profitable. That’s real, already realised conviction, not a distant bet that never paid off.

The Technical Wrinkle

Options traders watch max pain, the price where the largest share of contracts expires worthless and sellers benefit most. Deribit’s dashboard places Friday’s max pain around $75,000 to $76,000, well below spot, which has seen trading in the mid to high $80,000s this week. That gap can create a mechanical pull lower into settlement as market makers adjust hedges. Once Friday’s book resets, that specific hedging flow unwinds, and price is freer to move on genuine spot demand rather than options mechanics.

The Bigger Pattern Sitting Behind This

Bitcoin has closed September lower in eight of the past thirteen years, a pattern often called “Red September”. Current positioning, a heavy book built for higher prices, sits awkwardly alongside a repeat of that seasonal weakness.

Here’s where the two threads meet - if Friday’s settlement pulls price toward that max pain zone, it hands the bears exactly the headline they’ve been waiting for, a fresh excuse to call this rally another false move. That doesn’t need to be resolved this week specifically. The more likely path, based on how this cycle has behaved, is a repeat of the pattern through the mid $60,000’s earlier this year, where dip after dip tested the same zone over weeks without ever breaking it. Friday could be the first of several such tests stretched across the rest of the year rather than a single clean resolution. What matters isn’t whether this particular dip holds in isolation, it’s whether the trend keeps refusing to break over the coming months. If it does, that sets Bitcoin up for a push into the $90,000 range as the picture confirms itself heading into the final quarter. This will undoubtedly put bulls in full control once it comes.

Friday isn’t the only test on the calendar. CME’s September futures settle later the same day, alongside US durable goods orders and the University of Michigan’s final September sentiment reading, stacking three separate events into one trading day and adding short term noise worth having on the radar.

The Constructive Half of the Picture

A book stacked 1.4 to 1 in favour of calls, over half already profitable, signals where real capital expects this market to go, not just where it hopes. Whether the max pain dip lands this week or later in the year, the relevant question is whether it keeps failing to break the trend, in the same way the $60,000 support held, and bears failed to sustain pushes for lower prices over the last three months. If something similar happens again, Bitcoin heads into the final quarter well placed for a push toward $90,000.

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Stormrake Spotlight: Pax Gold (PAXG) ($4,265)

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/x/ZdoPzH4G/

Whilst PAXG hasn’t gained above the Moving Average 20 very short-term resistance, sitting around ~ $4,370, it’s still however holding the current local-higher low, which has held at $4,221. It’s possible with current macro-uncertainty that we see that further slide down, into a retest of $4,192, although trend remains up for now, therefore any further dip should be considered opportune if it comes.

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BTC/USD Key Levels and Price Action:

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/x/cJY0FjJk/

We’re staying zoomed out again today because Bitcoin just did something that only a zoomed out perspective can see. Yesterday’s dip might’ve looked like another bull-trap on the smaller timeframe, selling off again so quickly after finally pushing the high $80K barrier, however the bigger picture is what always counts the most. That sell off on the day actually saw Bitcoin perfectly re-test the previous May 2026 failed rally and lower high. This type of re-test of a level that previously acted as significant resistance, now flipped major support - is in fact an excellent sign of a healthy and strong market structure. If Bulls can keep momentum here, that would be exceptional, however even the base case of some more accumulation in the mid - high $80K range is more of the same healthy market structure that supports further legs higher going into 2027. Invalidation would be a strong close below $75K on higher timeframes, although there’s a lot of strong buying support between that and where we are now currently.

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*All prices are denominated in USD unless stated otherwise*

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Written by James Ryan