Bitcoin Braces for a $10.9 Billion Options Expiry With Max Pain at $78,000, Two Days After the Fed’s Split Hold: Can BTC Hold $79,000?
About 135,700 Bitcoin options worth $10.9 billion expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC on Friday, October 30, a third of the exchange’s open contracts, two days after the Federal Reserve held rates in a 10–2 vote that left a December hike open.
The price is sitting almost on top of the expiry’s pain point. BTC trades at $79,976, down 1.8% in 24 hours, after giving back its whole post-Fed bounce overnight. Max pain for Friday’s Bitcoin options expiry, the price at which buyers of those contracts would lose the most, is $78,000, and the October low that has held for a week is $79,221.
So what exactly is expiring, how did Bitcoin take the Fed, and can it hold $79,000 through Friday?
BREAKING: Bitcoin PLUNGES below $80,000 as tech stocks tumble and crypto liquidations hit $335 MILLION in 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/AZRs51zPv2
— Crypto Rover (@cryptorover) October 29, 2026
What Is in Friday’s Bitcoin Options Expiry?
Mostly bullish bets that are now far out of reach. Deribit’s public order book data at 09:01 UTC on Thursday shows 135,676 BTC in contracts dated October 30, out of 397,442 BTC across all Deribit expiries:
- Calls: 89,146 BTC, the right to buy. The biggest blocks sit at $95,000 (19,951 BTC), $100,000 (11,284 BTC) and $90,000 (10,711 BTC), all at least 12% above the price.
- Puts: 46,529 BTC, the right to sell, bunched between $70,000 and $75,000. That gives a put-to-call ratio of 0.52.
- Max pain: $78,000, about 2.5% below the price, by our calculation from the same data.
- In the money: at $80,000, only about 12,800 BTC of calls and 7,000 BTC of puts would pay out. The other 85% would expire worthless.
Deribit BTC open interest expiring October 30, by strike. Source: Deribit
The Deribit Volatility Index (DVOL), which tracks the 30-day volatility priced into Bitcoin options, fell to 36 from 38 over the past two days. Options traders are paying less for protection even with an expiry this size a day away. Ether adds a smaller expiry of about 338,000 ETH, roughly $780 million.
How Did Bitcoin React to the FOMC Meeting?
A two-hour rally, then a slow leak. The Fed’s statement on Wednesday kept the federal funds rate at 3.75% to 4%, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack voting for a quarter-point hike instead. Chair Kevin Warsh declined to signal the next move: “I don’t believe in forward guidance, absent exigent circumstances, absent a crisis.”
Binance’s hourly candles show the move:
- 2 p.m. ET (18:00 UTC): $80,860.
- Two hours later: $81,788, up 1.1%, just short of Wednesday morning’s $81,823 high.
- 01:00–02:00 UTC Thursday: a drop to $79,710, as a selloff in chip stocks led by Samsung’s earnings miss spread through Asian trading.
- Now: $79,976, about 1.1% below where it stood when the statement came out.
ETF buyers stayed in. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $137.3 million on Wednesday, their third straight day of inflows, nearly all of it into BlackRock’s IBIT, SoSoValue figures show.
A soft day after the Fed is normal for Bitcoin. On Binance data, BTC was higher 24 hours after only 33 of the Fed’s 71 decisions since January 2018, and after holds the bigger moves tended to come weeks later.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: Can BTC Hold $79,000 Through the Expiry?
It has so far, but with less room each time. On the 4-hour chart, BTC sits at $80,130, below both its 50-period EMA at $80,978 and its 200-period EMA at $81,635. The faster line crossed under the slower one around October 23, and Wednesday’s post-Fed rally stalled right at the 200 EMA.
The floor is the October 24 low at $79,221. Bitcoin has dipped into the $79,200–$79,850 area on five of the last six days and bounced each time, most recently at 02:00 UTC on Thursday.
- Resistance: $81,823, Wednesday’s pre-Fed high, sitting with the 4-hour 200 EMA. Then $84,898, the October 21 high.
- Support: $79,221, then the $78,000 max-pain strike, then $76,264 to $76,478, the September 2 low and the daily 200 EMA.
BTCUSDT 4H chart. Source: TradingView
| Scenario | Condition | Where it could lead |
|---|---|---|
| Advance | A 4-hour close above $81,823 and the 200 EMA | $84,898, the October 21 high |
| Pause | Holding between $79,221 and $81,823 into Friday’s settlement | More range trade near the $80,000 strike |
| Retreat | A daily close below $79,221 | $78,000 max pain, then $76,264 to $76,478 |
Max pain is only a reference point. It marks where option buyers would collect the least on Friday, and the price is under no obligation to go there.
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Friday’s settlement clears a third of Deribit’s open bets in one go, and most of them were placed for a market well above $80,000. After the Bitcoin options expiry, the next tests come from data, not derivatives: the October jobs report on November 6 and consumer prices on November 10, both on the road to the Fed’s December 9 decision.
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