Bitcoin Futures Hit $61.9B: Bulls vs. Bears Battle at $80K

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<a href="https://bbg-news.com/btc-usd/">Bitcoin</a> Futures Hit $61.9B as Traders Pile Into Both Sides of the Market

Trading activity in Bitcoin futures hit $61.9 billion on Thursday, with the price of Bitcoin around $81,500. Analysis of options contracts suggests that $80,000 is a key price level to watch, as many contracts could become worthless if the price stays below that point, especially with upcoming expiration dates.

  • Key Takeaways:

  • Bitcoin futures open interest (OI) hit $61.9B across all exchanges on May 14, with Binance holding 19.05% market share.
  • CME’s put-heavy options book signals institutional hedging, as calls lead 57% to 43% on Deribit and OKX volume.
  • Deribit’s June 26 expiry carries $14.52B in notional value, making it the heaviest options event this summer.

CME Tops the Futures Leaderboard at $9.72B — Here’s What Institutional Money Is Doing

Total futures open interest stood at 759,550 BTC, with Binance holding the largest share at 144,730 BTC and $11.79 billion notional, good for 19.05% of the global market. CME ranked first by a different measure; its OI/24h volume ratio hit 2.0071, the highest on the board, pointing to deep institutional positioning relative to daily trading activity. CME futures open interest came in at 119,240 BTC, worth $9.72 billion and 15.69% of total market share.

Overall, trading activity increased, with open interest—a measure of how many contracts are outstanding—rising by 1.61% across all exchanges in the last 24 hours and by 3.72% in the last four. BingX saw the largest increase in activity, with a 17.81% jump in open interest. Conversely, Kucoin experienced a significant decrease, losing 17.25% of its open interest—the biggest drop among major exchanges.

57% Calls, 42% Puts: Bitcoin Options Traders Are Still Leaning Bullish

On the options side, the call-to-put skew favored bulls. Global options open interest, according to coinglass.com stats, showed 272,501.92 BTC in calls against 204,098.61 BTC in puts, a 57.18% to 42.82% split. The 24-hour volume breakdown leaned harder toward calls; 70% versus 30%, or 58,825.09 BTC in calls and 25,211.63 BTC in puts. Deribit’s Dec. 25, 2026, $120,000 call held the top open interest rank at 6,980.8 BTC, while the May 29 $75,000 put ranked fourth at 6,226.2 BTC.

Total bitcoin options open interest reached roughly $40 billion, up from the $14.68 billion floor seen in mid-2024. Stats have closely followed spot price, essentially peaking near $120,000 before pulling back alongside the correction that carried bitcoin toward $65,000 and lower earlier this year. The recovery back above $80,000 has brought options OI back toward the $40 billion range.

Image source: Coinglass stats.

Data from major cryptocurrency options exchanges – Deribit, OKX, and Binance – indicates that the price range between $78,000 and $81,000 currently causes the most pain for options holders with near-term contracts. Looking specifically at OKX, the most significant pain point for options expiring on May 15th is around $80,000, dropping to $75,000 for May 29th before increasing again for June 26th. The May 29th expiry on OKX has a total value of $1.24 billion, which is the highest amount seen on any of these contracts.

Deribit’s max pain curve follows a similar arc. May 15 sits near $80,500, the curve dips to $75,000 around May 29, then climbs back to roughly $80,000 for June 26. The notional volume at that Deribit June 26 expiry topped $14.52 billion, dwarfing every other expiration date on the board. Binance shows a different shape, with max pain peaking near $85,000 for the June 5 contracts before fading toward $78,000 as expirations stretch further out.

CME options data from Cryptoquant showed a clear structural shift over the past year. Options open interest stacked by expiration peaked near 70,000 contracts in late 2025 before dropping sharply as bitcoin corrected. The 2026 recovery has been quieter; the current CME OI sits around 10,000 contracts in near-term buckets, with the 1–2 month expiry window making up the bulk of positioning.

The CME put-versus-call breakdown showed puts dominating call open interest through most of Q1 2026, a period that aligned with bitcoin trading between $65,000 and $85,000. That put-heavy book at CME reflects institutional players using regulated options to hedge downside rather than chase upside, a different posture than what retail-heavy platforms like Deribit and OKX show on volume.

The exchange-level futures open interest chart, tracking all platforms combined, showed total OI near $62 billion after bottoming below $30 billion in early 2026. The cycle peak came in late 2025, near $90 billion, when bitcoin traded close to $120,000.

The data taken together shows a market that has rebuilt meaningful derivatives exposure since the correction, with options traders leaning bullish on volume but hedged on open interest. Max pain near $80,000 gives market makers a clear gravitational pull heading into this week’s expirations, and with $14.52 billion stacked at the Deribit June expiry, the summer months carry real weight.

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2026-05-14 22:59