Bitcoin and Ethereum are heading into a heavyweight derivatives reset after a sharp long-side liquidation cascade hit the crypto market. Deribit CEO Luuk Strigers said roughly 184,000 BTC in options contracts are set to expire on Friday, September 25, carrying a notional value of about $15.9 billion. That represents around 37% of total open Bitcoin options positions on Deribit. The put/call ratio stands at 0.69, indicating that many traders had positioned for higher prices when the contracts were created, and the maximum pain price is estimated near $75,000. Ethereum options worth approximately $2.1 billion are also expiring the same day, bringing the combined expiry to nearly $18 billion.
Spot markets, however, have moved sharply lower ahead of that expiration. Bitcoin opened near $86,198 and reached an intraday high of $87,283 before reversing to $83,874.68, a 4.32% high-to-low reversal. CoinGlass data shows $580.97 million in total crypto liquidations over 24 hours, including $437.58 million in long positions. During the most intense four-hour window, $360.82 million was liquidated, and 93.5% of that was longs. Bitcoin accounted for $169.81 million in liquidations, Ether for $119.26 million, XRP for $31 million and Zcash for $30.32 million.
The pressure was visible across major assets. Total crypto market capitalization fell 2.77% to $2.85 trillion, while open interest remained elevated near $475 billion. Among large-cap coins, Bitcoin dropped 2.98%, Ether 3.21%, XRP 4.28%, Solana 2.85%, BNB 3.20% and Dogecoin 7.33%. Still, the declines retraced only part of a strong weekly advance: Bitcoin remained 10.9% higher over seven days, Ether 11.28% higher, XRP 18.18% higher and Solana 17.50% higher. The Fear & Greed Index stayed at 73 in “Greed” territory.
Derivatives positioning remains a key risk factor into Friday’s settlement. Liquidation heatmaps show leveraged liquidity clustered around $85,500 to $87,000 and near $88,000, with additional support interest in the low $83,000 and $82,000 areas. Analysts noted that $82,000 could become an important reference if the correction deepens. Meanwhile, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted more than $1.7 billion in net inflows across Monday and Tuesday, with total ETF assets reaching roughly $111 billion, creating a potential spot-demand counterweight to leveraged derivatives pressure.
