Max pain in crypto options: what it is and what it isn't

Before every big expiry, someone quotes its max pain: the price at which the options expiring would pay out least. The idea that goes with it, that the price is drawn there as the day comes, is popular and contested. The sum itself is simple, and the site works it out for every expiry, across every exchange's options together.

What is max pain?

Max pain is the settlement price at which the options expiring on a date would be worth least to the people holding them. At expiry, a call pays the amount the settlement price is above its strike, and a put the amount it's below; an option on the wrong side of its strike pays nothing. For each price the coin could settle at, add up what every option would pay, times how many are open. Max pain is the price where that total is smallest: where the buyers of options would get least, and the sellers pay out least.

A worked example with three strikes: 10 calls open at 90, 20 at 100 and 40 at 110; 40 puts open at 90, 30 at 100 and 10 at 110.

Example figures, not market data. Max pain is 100. The site does the same sum at every strike listed, over every exchange's open interest together.

Why some say the price is drawn there

The dealers on the other side of options hedge them by buying and selling the coin, and as expiry nears, that hedging can hold the price near strikes with a lot of open interest. Research on US stocks has found that closing prices cluster at strikes on expiry days, a pull often called pinning, and put it down to market makers adjusting their hedges and to some traders pushing prices. From there, the max pain idea says the price settles where options pay out least.

Pinning is a pull towards a strike, not towards max pain, and it doesn't happen at every expiry.

Why it's no forecast

• Open interest doesn't say who holds what. Every option has a buyer and a seller, and the count doesn't say which side the dealers are on. Plenty of options are bought as cover for a position in the coin, and pay off when it's needed.
• It moves. As options are opened and closed, max pain moves with them.
• The market is bigger than its options. Bitcoin's price is set on spot and perpetual markets too, where far more changes hands each day.
• Settlement is an average. Deribit by Coinbase and OKX settle against the average of their index over the half hour before 08:00 UTC, not one moment's price.

On 14 October 2026 at 11:47 UTC, bitcoin's options expiring on 30 October, $13B of them on the three exchanges, had their max pain at $79,000, with bitcoin's index at $83,401.96. Where bitcoin settles on the day is another matter.

Put/call beside it

Max pain is read from open interest, and so is the put/call ratio beside it on the site: the puts open for each call. Above 1, more puts are open than calls; below 1, fewer. That same expiry's was 0.54, about one put for every two calls. Like max pain, it counts positions, not what they're for: a put can be a bet on a fall or cover against one.

How to read it on the site

1. Open a coin's page, Bitcoin's for one. The tile Max pain is the next monthly expiry's, where the expiring options pay out least, beside Put/call for the same date and across every expiry.
2. Options by expiry gives each expiry's Max pain and Put/call, with its open interest.
3. The futures and options index lists each coin's put/call across every expiry, and how much expires next.

What max pain leaves out

• Which side anyone is on, as above.
• How strong the pull is. Even where pinning happens, it's a small effect beside a coin's own moves.
• Time. It's worked out from the open interest now, and changes until the expiry.

Not financial advice. Prices move while you read them.