Bitcoin faces the largest options expiration event in history—$23.6 billion.

I have analyzed the five expiration dates over the past three years where options exceeding $5 billion expired and discovered a pattern worth noting: prices tend to decline before expiration, then experience a sharp rally or a sharp sell-off (industry term "pinning") on the expiration day, followed by a rebound afterward.

The problem is, among traders who follow this pattern to go long, 90% end up being wiped out. Blindly following the trend to short also doesn't feel good; 80% of them ultimately panic and close their positions, missing the opportunity. The core reason is simple—market makers are especially aggressive in harvesting on options expiration days.

Let's look at two specific examples to understand better.

On March 29, 2024, $9.4 billion options expired. BTC had been trading sideways around 70,000 before expiration, showing no clear direction. During the 72 hours before and after expiration, the volatility was only about 5%, calm and uneventful.

By September 27, when $5.8 billion options expired, it was a different story. BTC rose from 59,000 to the 63,000–65,000 range before expiration, and on the expiration day itself, it broke through 66,000. The 48-hour volatility reached 10%, and short positions were wiped out completely.

Why does this happen? The answer lies in the Max Pain price.

The core logic of market makers is: when the current price is far below Max Pain, they push the price up; when the current price is far above Max Pain, they push it down. The goal is only one—maximize the losses of options buyers and profit from it.

This time, the data is quite interesting:

The Max Pain price is stuck at 96,000. The Put/Call ratio is 0.38, indicating that the number of call options is 2.6 times that of put options, showing a market sentiment that is overly optimistic. But the current BTC price (as of December 25) is about 87,000, which is 10.3% below Max Pain.

For reference.