Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP Slide as $18 Billion Options Expiry Looms: What’s Going On?

Bitcoin , Ethereum , and XRP all pulled back Wednesday as traders braced for Friday’s $18 billion options expiry, the largest of 2026.What the Options Expiry MeansDeribit CEO Luuk Strijers told CoinDesk that roughly $15.9 billion in Bitcoin options and $2.1 billion in Ethereum options expire Friday at 8:00 UTC, wiping out 37% of Deribit’s entire outstanding BTC open interest in one shot.Positioning skews heavily bullish, with a put/call ratio of 0.69, meaning the book was built for higher prices.Maximum pain for Bitcoin sits at $75,000, well below the current spot price near $85,500. Deribit calls that level a “soft magnet for price into expiry,” the point where option sellers benefit most if spot drifts there by settlement.About a third of the entire book already sits in the money.Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Péquignot added that open interest concentrates around the $85,000 to $100,000 call strikes, while defensive puts anchor lower at $60,000, $70,000, and $75,000, creating a multi-layered support floor beneath the market.Why Friday Could Bring Extra VolatilityStrijers explained that dealer hedging helped fuel Bitcoin’s recent run from $80,000 to $87,000, since dealers short calls have to buy spot as prices rise to stay hedged.Once Friday’s settlement clears that flow, the pinning effect fades, volatility can pick back up, and the trading range resets.Why Ethereum Is Quietly OutperformingWidely-followed crypto analyst Crypto Tice posted on X that Ethereum has rallied 75% over three months, climbing from $1,510 to $2,650 and clearing April’s highs while Bitcoin still struggles above its May high.He pointed to ETH accumulation on Binance hitting a three-year high, with monthly withdrawal transactions reaching 90,000, double the level from the start of the year.“Investors are not trading ETH right now,” Tice wrote. “They are buying it and moving it into cold storage immediately,” he added.Key Technical Levels for BTC, ETH and XRPLevelBTCETHXRPResistance$87,283$2,671.66 (0.618 Fib)$1.66Current Price$84,622$2,644.34$1.51Support$79,520 (BB basis)$2,447.71 (0.5 Fib)$1.41 (EMA20)Deeper Support$75,784 (EMA50)$2,223.77 (0.382 Fib)$1.36 (EMA200) Read Also: Photo via Shutterstock