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

The Bitcoin market is set to see a highly watched derivatives event this week. Deribit, the crypto options exchange, will settle Bitcoin options worth about $14.16 billion this Friday, and the market structure shows that $75,000 could become a key “magnet price level” around this round of expiration.
Deribit’s rules show that options typically expire on Fridays at 08:00 UTC, which converts to UTC+8 (Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore time) — 4:00 p.m. on Friday, March 27.

As of the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $71,617, with an intraday high of $71,634 and a low of $68,943, meaning there is still about a $3,400 gap between the current price and $75,000. If the market truly shifts toward the “Max Pain Price,” significant volatility may still accompany the next two trading days.
The volume of Bitcoin options expiring this Friday accounts for nearly 40% of Deribit’s total 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 concentrate on a single expiration date, the hedging, rollovers, and closing actions by traders may amplify spot and futures market volatility as settlement approaches.

The so-called “Max Pain Price” refers to the price level at expiration where option buyers experience the smallest profit and the largest loss, or where option sellers experience the smallest loss and the largest profit. The “Max Pain Price” for this expiration sits at roughly $75,000 (as shown in the chart above). Deribit says that as market makers carry out hedging actions and large options sellers try to keep the payout amount to a minimum, this level could become a “magnet price level” for Bitcoin.
According to Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Péquignot, “Bitcoin is currently trading close to $71,000, and the $75,000 Max Pain Price represents a kind of gravitational pull. Based on historical experience, this will prompt market makers to do Delta hedging, thereby pushing the price toward the strike price that expires worthless.”
However, whether the market will necessarily be “pulled” toward $75,000 still depends on the direction of spot buying, macro risk appetite, and hedging flows before expiration. Deribit’s official explanation notes that the final options settlement price is not a single moment’s price, but the 30-minute time-weighted average price (TWAP) of the Deribit Index from 07:30 to 08:00 UTC; converted to UTC+8, that corresponds to the average price from 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on March 27. This means that what truly affects the settlement outcome is market performance during that half-hour window at the boundary between the Friday Asian late session and the early European session.
From the recent market sentiment, on one hand, participants are watching whether Bitcoin can sustain the rebound; on the other hand, they have not fully abandoned hedging demand. At one point, demand for downside protection rose to a new high, indicating that even if Bitcoin has recently held above $70,000, the derivatives market remains highly on guard for short-term swings. This structure—“prices rebound, but protective buying remains strong”—also makes the large expiring position this time particularly worth monitoring.