Bitcoin fell below $76,000 on Friday morning, and the market now waits on a $2.65 billion options expiry that settles at 08:00 UTC. The expiry will not tell you where Bitcoin goes next, but it will show how much of this week was positioning and how much was real selling.
Bitcoin traded near $75,720 in early Friday trading, down about 5.9% on the day from an open near $80,447. That puts it nearly 40% below its $126,080 all-time high and at its lowest level in about seven weeks.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin traded near $75,720 early Friday, down about 5.9% on the day and nearly 40% below its $126,080 all-time high.
- About $2.65 billion of options (33,135 BTC) expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC, with max pain at $79,000.
- Settlement uses the average index price from 07:30 to 08:00 UTC, so the US jobs report at 13:30 UTC lands five and a half hours too late to move the outcome.
- The line that matters after the expiry is $75,451, Strategy’s average cost basis.
The expiry in plain numbers
Deribit settles the week’s Bitcoin options at 08:00 UTC on Friday, November 6. Contracts covering 33,135 BTC, worth about $2.65 billion at current prices, expire at that moment.
- The expiry in plain numbers
- Why $79,000 looks out of reach this morning
- The $75,451 line nobody wants to test
- The five-hour blind spot
- What the last two weeks actually show
- What the expiry can and cannot decide
- The ETF picture is split, not settled
- Three mistakes to avoid today
- Treating max pain as a price target
- Reading the expiry as a verdict on Bitcoin
- Forgetting the jobs report
- FAQs
- What time does the Bitcoin options expiry settle today?
- What is max pain for today’s Bitcoin options expiry?
- Why did Bitcoin fall below $76,000?
- What is Strategy’s Bitcoin cost basis?
- When is the US jobs report, and why does it matter for Bitcoin?
- Conclusion
Calls outnumber puts by about three to one. Traders hold 24,912 calls against 8,223 puts, a put-call ratio of 0.33.
| Expiry fact | Number |
|---|---|
| Contracts expiring | 33,135 BTC |
| Notional value | About $2.65 billion |
| Venue | Deribit |
| Settlement time | 08:00 UTC (1:00 PM PKT) |
| Settlement price | Average index price, 07:30 to 08:00 UTC |
| Max pain | $79,000 |
| Open calls | 24,912 |
| Open puts | 8,223 |
| Largest call strikes | $82,000 and $85,000 |
| Largest put strikes | $74,000 and $75,000 |
What max pain actually means
Max pain is the price where the most options expire worthless. For today that price is $79,000, about $3,300 above where Bitcoin trades now.
That gap matters. A move to $79,000 before 08:00 UTC would need a sharp rally in a market that just fell 6% in a day, and nothing in the order book suggests one is coming.
Why $79,000 looks out of reach this morning
Bitcoin opened Friday near $80,447 and slid to $75,208 within hours. The 24-hour low sat at $75,369 in early trading, the lowest level in about seven weeks.
The fall followed a brutal day for US stocks. The Nasdaq dropped 5.52% and the S&P 500 fell 4.36% on Thursday as investors questioned stretched AI valuations, and crypto followed stocks down.
Leveraged traders felt it first. More than $1 billion in positions were liquidated in 24 hours, mostly longs, according to CoinGlass data.
The $6.3 billion Binance breach earlier in the week still hangs over confidence too.
The $75,451 line nobody wants to test
Forget max pain for a minute. The number that decides the mood after the expiry is $75,451, Strategy’s average cost basis on its Bitcoin stack.
Bitcoin trades only a few hundred dollars above that line right now. A daily close below it turns a market story into a balance-sheet story, because the world’s biggest corporate Bitcoin holder would sit underwater on its entire position.
That does not mean Strategy sells. It has held through deeper drawdowns before.
It does mean every commentator will frame the next move around that number, and framing moves markets.
The five-hour blind spot
Here is the part most coverage misses. The expiry settles on the average index price between 07:30 and 08:00 UTC, but the October US jobs report lands at 13:30 UTC, five and a half hours later.
So the jobs numbers cannot change today’s settlement at all.
A hot or cold payrolls print will hit a market that has already closed its options book. Friday’s expiring puts offer zero protection against whatever the jobs report does.
Consensus sits near 50,000 to 65,000 new jobs, with unemployment at 4.2%, after a soft September print of just 29,000.
Traders know this. That is why the real action today is not the expiry itself.
It is the gap between the settlement and the jobs data, five and a half hours when Bitcoin trades with no options shield and a macro report on the clock. The Fed held rates at 3.75% to 4.00% last week, so the jobs data now shapes December’s decision.
What the last two weeks actually show
The slide did not start on Friday. Bitcoin closed October 28 at $81,344, then lost ground in steps: $77,992 on October 29, $77,369 on October 30, and $76,816 on November 2.
A midweek bounce to $80,504 on November 4 looked like a recovery. It lasted one day.
Thursday’s close of $79,878 gave back the gain, and Friday’s open near $80,447 collapsed within hours. The $81,000 bounce after the Fed hold faded just as fast.
What the expiry can and cannot decide
An expiry is a settlement, not a verdict. It decides three things and leaves the rest open.
| Outcome | What it decides | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| Settlement above $79,000 | Call sellers keep most of the premium, and the max-pain pull worked | Whether buyers return next week |
| Settlement near $75,000 to $76,000 | Most calls expire worthless, and put holders at $74,000 to $75,000 stay close to the money | Whether $75,451 holds as support |
| Settlement below $75,451 | Strategy sits underwater, and the bear case gains its cleanest headline | Whether the selling is exhausted or just starting |
Notice what the table leaves out. No outcome tells you where Bitcoin trades next week.
That answer comes from the jobs report, ETF flows, and whether buyers step in below $76,000.
The ETF picture is split, not settled
US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $74.6 million on Wednesday, ending a three-day outflow streak worth $1.16 billion. Fidelity’s FBTC led with about $237 million.
Look closer and the picture splits. BlackRock’s IBIT lost $201.2 million the same day, its fourth straight outflow, taking its streak to $935.2 million.
Early tallies for Thursday pointed to another outflow day, with some funds still to report. BlackRock is even selling a new buffer ETF built for drops like this one.
One day of inflows does not reverse a trend. It shows buyers exist, not that they are winning.
Three mistakes to avoid today
Volatile days reward patience and punish shortcuts. These three traps catch the most traders on expiry days.
Treating max pain as a price target
Max pain describes where option sellers lose least. It is not a magnet, and it is not a forecast.
Bitcoin has ignored max pain plenty of times before.
Reading the expiry as a verdict on Bitcoin
Friday’s options cover one week of positioning. They say nothing about adoption, regulation, or the next quarter.
A market that treats a weekly settlement as a final judgment overreacts every single Friday.
Forgetting the jobs report
The expiry settles at 08:00 UTC. The jobs report lands at 13:30 UTC.
Anyone who trades the expiry and ignores the second event is watching half the day. Fear is running high, and our guide to the fear and greed index explains why that alone is not a buy signal.
FAQs
Five questions readers keep asking this morning, answered with the numbers above.
What time does the Bitcoin options expiry settle today?
The $2.65 billion Deribit expiry settles at 08:00 UTC on Friday, November 6, 2026, using the average Bitcoin index price from 07:30 to 08:00 UTC. That is 1:00 PM PKT.
What is max pain for today’s Bitcoin options expiry?
Max pain sits at $79,000, the price where the most open options contracts expire worthless. Bitcoin trades near $75,720, about $3,300 below that level.
Why did Bitcoin fall below $76,000?
Bitcoin fell after US tech stocks dropped sharply on Thursday, with the Nasdaq down 5.52%. More than $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in 24 hours, and the $6.3 billion Binance breach still weighs on confidence.
What is Strategy’s Bitcoin cost basis?
Strategy’s average cost basis is about $75,451 per Bitcoin. Bitcoin trades only a few hundred dollars above that line, so a daily close below it would leave the company’s whole position underwater.
When is the US jobs report, and why does it matter for Bitcoin?
The October jobs report lands at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 UTC, 6:30 PM PKT) on Friday, November 6. It arrives five and a half hours after the options settlement, so it cannot change the expiry outcome, but it can move Bitcoin sharply in the afternoon.
Conclusion
Today’s expiry will settle $2.65 billion of bets, and then the market moves on. The numbers that matter after 08:00 UTC are $75,451, the jobs report at 13:30 UTC, and whether buyers defend $75,000 into the weekend.
Watch those three, not the max-pain number. Max pain tells you what option sellers wanted.
The other three tell you what the market actually does next.
