Over $4 Billion in BTC and ETH Options Expire Worthless: Traders Are Quietly Betting on a Massive 2026 Comeback

December 5, 2025, saw one of the quietest yet most revealing options expiry events of the year: more than $4 billion in notional value across Bitcoin and Ethereum contracts rolled off the board worthless as traders refused to chase short-term upside and instead rotated aggressively into mid-2026 calls.

Deribit alone recorded $2.8 billion in BTC options and $1.3 billion in ETH options expiring, with >92% of December and January strikes finishing out-of-the-money — the highest worthless-expiry rate since the 2022 bear market.

What the Data Actually Shows

The Rotation Tells the Real Story

Instead of rolling into January or March 2026 contracts (the usual post-expiry behavior), open interest data shows a mass migration to June and December 2026 tenors:

• BTC June 2026 $150,000 calls now hold the single largest strike concentration in history.
• ETH December 2026 $10,000 calls jumped from <5,000 contracts to >28,000 in the past 10 days.
• 25-delta skew flipped from deeply put-heavy in November to neutral-to-bullish across both assets.

Why Traders Are Skipping 2025 and Betting on 2026

1. Institutional Yield Preference With spot ETFs paying 0% and staking/mining yields still attractive, large players are happy to sit in cash-secured puts or collateralized calls and collect premium instead of chasing near-term volatility.
2. Macro Calendar Clarity 2026 brings the next Bitcoin halving (Q2), potential Fed rate cuts into a new presidential term, and the first full year of the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve purchasing program.
3. Volatility Collapse BTC realized vol (30-day) has fallen to 38% — its lowest since February 2025 — making short-dated options expensive relative to the move.
4. ETH Narrative Reset Fusaka upgrade success + L2 fee revenue at all-time highs has institutions repositioning for the “Ethereum flippening 2.0” thesis in 2026.

Bottom Line

The $4 billion that just evaporated wasn’t a bearish signal; it was the sound of smart money walking away from overpriced short-term gamma and quietly stacking the cheapest, highest-conviction bullish exposure the market has seen all cycle.

If the June/December 2026 calls they’re now holding print anywhere close to spot, this expiry will be remembered as the moment the whales placed an iceberg-sized bet on the biggest leg of the bull market still ahead.