Bitcoin Futures Hit $61.9B as Traders Pile Into Both Sides of the Market – Bitcoin News

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.

The broader futures picture showed a 24-hour open interest gain of 1.61% across all exchanges, with a four-hour move of +3.72%. BingX stood out with a 24-hour open interest jump of 17.81%, the biggest one-day move on the leaderboard. Kucoin moved in the opposite direction, shedding 17.25% of open interest over the same period, which was the sharpest single-day drop among major platforms.

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.

Max pain levels across Deribit, OKX, and Binance all cluster in the $78,000–$81,000 range for near-term expirations. OKX max pain data shows levels near $80,000 for May 15, dipping toward $75,000 for May 29 before recovering for the June 26 date. Notional value stacked on the May 29 OKX expiry has reached $1.24 billion, the heaviest stat on the spread.

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.