Guide
Max pain in Bitcoin options: what it is and what it is not
Max pain is the settlement price at which option holders, all together, would collect the least at expiry. It is popular because it is easy to compute and easy to tell a story about. The calculation is solid; the story that price is pulled there deserves more caution.
How max pain is calculated
Take one expiry. For every possible settlement price, work out what every open call and put would pay at expiry, weighted by its open interest, and add it all up. The settlement price where that total payout is smallest is max pain. No assumption about who holds the options is needed, and no model of volatility, which is why it is the most transparent of the options levels.
In Swiftedge Options, the MAX PAIN tag sits on the chain at that strike for the selected expiry, and the top bar shows max pain for the nearest monthly expiry.
The story, and the problem with it
The popular story is that option sellers, often assumed to be dealers, benefit if price settles at max pain and that the market therefore drifts there into expiry. Two problems:
- Payout is not profit. Option sellers have hedged most of their risk along the way, so the settlement price matters far less to them than the raw payout suggests.
- The settlement is hard to steer. BTC options settle on an index price averaged across several major spot exchanges over a window before 08:00 UTC, which is much harder to push around than a single order book.
Pinning: the related idea
Pinning is the idea that price is drawn toward a strike with a lot of same-day gamma just before expiry, because hedging near that strike leans against moves away from it. It is a different calculation from max pain, but the two often point to nearby round numbers.
We tested pinning on Bitcoin between January and October 2026: in the hours before the 08:00 UTC settlement, did price move toward the same-day strike with the largest gamma? It did slightly more often than toward a random strike, but the effect was tiny, a few hundredths of a percent, much smaller than ordinary trading costs and noise.
Use max pain as a fact about positions. It tells you where option holders' payout would be smallest. It is a useful number to know at expiry, not a target.
See the levels on the live chain.Swiftedge Options tags the call wall, put wall, gamma flip and max pain on the BTC options chain from Deribit, OKX and Bybit. Free, no sign-up.
Open Swiftedge OptionsCommon questions
Will Bitcoin settle at max pain?
There is no rule that it should. Max pain is arithmetic on open interest, not a forecast, and BTC regularly settles far from it.
Is max pain the same for every expiry?
No. Each expiry has its own open interest and its own max pain. Swiftedge Options shows max pain for the selected expiry, and the top bar shows it for the nearest monthly expiry.
What is the difference between max pain and the call wall or put wall?
Max pain uses only open interest and payoffs at expiry. The call and put walls use gamma, which also depends on time and implied volatility, and on an assumption about who holds the options.