How to read a crypto option chain across exchanges

An option chain is the list of every option on one expiry: the strikes, a call and a put at each, and what buyers bid and sellers ask. Most sites show one exchange's chain. With the same coin's options on several exchanges, the site puts theirs side by side, strike by strike, in implied volatility, and marks the best price of them all.

What's in an option chain?

• The expiry. Every option in a chain ends on the same date, at 08:00 UTC on the exchanges here.
• The strikes. The prices the options are struck at, closer together near the coin's price, further apart away from it.
• Calls and puts. At expiry, a call pays the amount the price settles above its strike, and a put the amount it settles below. The options here are European: they pay out only at expiry, in cash.
• The bid and the ask. The most a buyer will pay and the least a seller will take, with what's on offer at each.
• At the money. The strike nearest the forward, the price set now for the coin at expiry. Most of the trading is there, and the spreads are tightest.

The site writes every bid and ask as implied volatility, so the same strike compares straight across exchanges that price from different forwards and in different money (implied volatility explained).

Calls, puts and the forward

The forward is the coin's price for the expiry date, a little above today's when futures trade at a premium. A line in the site's chain marks it, with whose it is: for bitcoin's 30 October options on 14 October 2026, "Forward $83,594.95 on Deribit by Coinbase". Above it, calls are out of the money: they'd pay nothing if the price settled where it's expected to. Below it, puts are. Options out of the money trade the most, which is why the site draws each exchange's volatility by strike from its calls above the forward and its puts below it.

The best bid and the best ask

For every strike, the site takes each exchange's bid and ask and marks the best of them: the highest bid and the lowest ask, with the exchange that has it and what's on offer there. Calls on three exchanges, bid and ask in volatility, percent a year:

Example figures, not market data.

Read across a row and the best of the three is tighter than any one exchange's own quote: at 100, 0.3 points from C's bid to B's ask, where A's own spread is a whole point. Where the positions are isn't always where the best price is. On 14 October 2026, at the money on bitcoin's 30 October calls, the best of the three was 0.1 points wide, Bybit's bid against an ask OKX and Bybit shared, while Deribit by Coinbase, with most of the open interest, quoted a spread of 0.6.

Crossed: one exchange's bid above another's ask

At 105 in the table, C's bid, 34.3, is above B's ask, 34.2, and the site tags the strike Crossed. It happens: the same day, Bybit's bid on bitcoin's 90,000 call was above OKX's ask, 33.8 against 33.7. It looks like a free trade: buy on one, sell on the other. It isn't, quite:

• Each works out volatility from its own forward. The same volatility is a slightly different price on each.
• They settle on their own index, at the same hour but not necessarily on the same price.
• Fees and margin. Each leg pays a fee and ties up margin on its own exchange.
• Size and time. The quotes are read a few seconds apart, and are good for what's on offer at the best price alone.

So a cross a tenth of a point wide is worth a look, not money left on the table.

How to read the chain on the site

1. Open Bitcoin options by strike on Bitcoin's page, or the same on Ethereum's.
2. Choose an expiry. The chain opens on the next monthly one; every other expiry is a button beside it.
3. Choose Calls or Puts, and Volatility or Price for the figures in money.
4. Read across a strike: each exchange's Bid and Ask, then Best bid and Best ask, each with the exchange that has it and what's on offer. At the money marks the strike nearest the forward.
5. Under the chain, Volatility by strike draws each exchange's marks across every strike: the volatility smile.

What the chain leaves out

• Depth beyond the best. Only what's on offer at the best price; a larger order goes further into the book.
• Fees, which differ from one exchange to the next.
• The Greeks. Delta, gamma, vega and theta, which say how an option's price moves with the coin, time and volatility, aren't shown.
• Trades of several legs. Spreads and combinations, priced as one, are each exchange's own.

Not financial advice. Prices move while you read them.