I Built a $14B Options Expiry Tracker. Today It Flagged the Biggest Signal of the Year.

Every quarter, billions of dollars in Bitcoin options expire and move the market in ways most traders never see coming. I got tired of being surprised, so I built something to watch it for me. Today it flagged a signal I have never seen before: a 7.6% gap between Max Pain and spot price on the single largest expiry day of 2026. Here is exactly what that means and how the tracker works. Why Options Expiry Matters More Than You Think At 08:00 UTC today, $14.16 billion in Bitcoin options settle on Deribit. That is roughly 40% of total open interest being resolved in a single event. When this much notional value expires, the market does not just absorb it quietly. Options market makers are hedged. As contracts approach expiry, they unwind those hedges. The direction of the unwind depends on where spot price sits relative to the strike distribution — specifically, relative to Max Pain . Max Pain is the price at which the maximum number of options contracts expire worthless. Market makers be